The World in Which We Fail
by Mellifluousness
Summary: This world is full of danger, great obstacles that only the bravest can face and the mightiest overcome. In that case, how the Nether did this idiot survive the first night? Join your slightly schizophrenic narrator and all her Latin in a quest from beginning to End and back again. Can she survive creepers, failures and vengeful white eyes? Yeah, nah. (REALLY OLD AND TERRIBLE)
1. Day One: Snow and Sheep

**Greetings, internet! Mellifluousness here, failing at Minecraft and deciding to document it for your amusement and enjoyment. Yes, that means I actually **_**did **_**all this stuff. Be afraid. Be very afraid.**

Welcome to Minecraft.

Welcome to the Overworld.

Welcome to the World in Which We Fail.

You may call me Mellifluousness, simply because I don't like my Minecraft username. Believe you me- I'm terrible at the game. Documented here will be all my failures and successes- the latter probably being few and far between- in the New World, the World in Which We Fail Mark II. Yes, Mark II. I have done this before. Once again, be afraid.

I will begin my journey on a new world so that you have a chance to see how badly I fail from the beginning to- well, the End! This will be slightly dramatised for your enjoyment. Join me as I cross the Overworld in search of new things to fail in.

In three...

Two...

One...

%-%

Switching level, generating level, simulating world for a bit, saving chunks...

_Crunch-crunch!_

I was dropped rather rudely onto dark green grass. The leaves of pine trees whispered faintly in the biting wind. And biting it was, too- I had spawned in a taiga biome! In front of me lay a hill, the "baa!"of sheep resonating from it. Before that, however, was a little iced-over pool.

Of course I spawn in a taiga biome. Of course.

I decided I'd have a look around and started forward. It turned out the pool was a river, feeding a sea that spanned nearly to the horizon. I could make out some vine-hung trees on the other side of it, silhouetted orange against the rising sun- a swamp, perhaps, or a massive jungle? I dearly hoped for the latter. I _love _jungles.

A walk onwards- my computer lagging because I have another program open- confirmed my suspicions. It was a jungle! A lovely great beautiful jungle! Oh, what luck! Perhaps I will venture to it once I have cut down a few trees.

Spotting a satisfactory-looking plant on the other side of the frosty river, I went to cross the ice to punch it to smithereens. It was when I ended up face-down in the deep, dark and above all _freezing_ water that I realised that there was no ice here. Just my luck.

_Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold COLD!_

I dashed out of the water and up onto the other bank, shivering in the chilly temperatures and far from helped by my wetness. Still shaking, teeth chattering, I climbed up the bank and began to punch at this lovely great pine tree. Soon the bottom two pieces of trunk were in my hands and I was standing under the tree, hitting it with its own dismembered body. I feel terrible for that now.

There was a surprising amount of wood in this tree! Perhaps spawning in the taiga had been fortuitous after all. Soon the remaining trunk was out of my reach, so I grabbed a dirt block from the hill and placed it under me- bumping my head five times, no less- so that I could get the wood.

There was another one. Of course there was another one.

I punched my dirt block out of the way and snatched another two off the side of the hill. This enabled me to acquire two more trunk blocks.

There was another one. Yes, there was _still _another one.

I repeated the process far more times than I should have and got out of the tree feeling rather fulfilled. I was surprised to find that I had a sapling. Ever loyal to the environment, I replaced most of the dirt back on the hillside, leaving me with one.

_Baaa! _A sheep was trotting around on the ice next to me. Never too early to start making a bed, is it? I chased it over the abyssal depths of the still _freezing _ocean and killed it with far more blows than it should have been. Dirt block in hand, I looked over the water towards the rainforest and contemplated what to do next.

_Duh._

I rummaged in my backpack for that ever-useful set of crafting squares and turned my wood into a whopping set of thirty-six wooden planks. Oh, the joy! I made myself a handy little crafting table and placed it across the river- submerging myself _again _in the freezing water- on a little ridge next to a few more trees. I then set about making an axe, not realising how utterly _useless _wooden axes are. It was only when I tried chopping down the tree next to me that I wondered whether this would be counted as cannibalism and whether my bare hands would work better than this useless tool.

Having finally cut down the tree with said useless implement and the help of a few dirt blocks, I burst some of its leaves out of the way and acquired an adorable little sapling. I could barely resist using baby-speak at it, cute as it was. I heard the tell-tale _sploosh _of something being dropped in the water and dove into the icy depths for the plant I _knew _would be there. The cheeky little thing didn't fly its way into my backpack until _after _I had hit the sandy bottom and was coming back up, of course. As a firm believer in replanting, I stuck the saplings on the hill, one in place of the older tree I had cut down and the other two in random clear spots. I was _not _crossing that bloody river again to plant one in place of the first tree. Looking out over the snowy fields beyond my current position, I noticed a swamp and what looked like tundra populated by the occasional swamp tree. How strange! I crafted the wood into planks and wondered what I'd do next.

I headed down to the water's edge and noticed the _trickle-trickle-trickle _of running water. I got into the water- much warmer here, thankfully- and tried to find its source.

There was a great, big square pit in the sand! Thinking of things I had previously learned, I decided that this could, in fact, be a dungeon open to the sky! Hmm... I decided I wouldn't go down there until I had a trusty stone sword.

I went over to my crafting table and made myself a wooden pickaxe- it was as useless as a wooden axe, of course- and went over to a block of stone I had noticed sticking out of a hillside. I mined ten cobblestone blocks and, feeling rather proud, I crafted a stone pickaxe and a nice stone sword. I hefted the weapon in my hands, knowing that it would soon be put to good use.

I was ready for action.

I advanced again to the water where the dungeon was and took a deep breath, bravely gazing down into the depths and preparing myself for battle...

And I chickened out. Chickened out like a great, fat chicken. Darn my cowardice. I looked guiltily at the hills around me as though they were reprimanding me. "Go on, you coward! Do it! When you die, you'll respawn!" they cried.

_When _you die. Thanks, guys, you're really encouraging.

You know what? I would take precautions! Yeah, that was what I'd do! I dashed over to the crafting table and chopped it up, proceeding to stick it in the little hole I had dug out to get stone. I made myself a nice chest and put everything I had in it except for the stone sword. I'd need that.

It was then that the lovely, soothing game music sounded from everywhere at once. I need rousing battle music, darn it, not comforting songs! Quiet, you! I said shut up! It proceeded to completely ignore me and sing happily.

Darn music.

I ran to the water and took another deep breath. I checked the time- nearly dusk. It was now or never, and this time I'd do it. I would do it! I gave a battle cry and dived, heading to the bottom of the lake...

_I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnaDIE! _I panicked and swam upwards, far too slow for my liking. At one point I sank back down for a second or two as though the dungeon was pulling me towards it. Finally, I surfaced, gasping for air.

_Bloody coward._

Quiet, you.

_You're still a coward._

Shut up.

_You can't run from it forever._

I can run from it however long I please!

_Yes, you can. That doesn't change the fact that you're a coward._

...

_Yeah, I thought so._

Meet my conscience.

_Nice to meet you._

Quiet, you.

I checked the time again- even closer to night. I needed to find a couple more sheep and make a bed before nightfall. I did _not _want to spend the entire night twiddling my thumbs and waiting for death to come marching through the door.

_Now you're a _procrastinating_ coward._

I did not say anything to that, instead choosing to jump up the hill and look for sheep. I noticed a sapling perched on a floating block of leaves. Punch, grab, plant. Simple. I crossed the river, the temperature of which had _not _improved during the day, and ascended the hill to find the woolly animals.I wandered through the trees, sword comfortably in hand, hoping to hear a friendly _baa. _I did.

This was a flock of about five or so of them. I proceeded to brutally murder three. I already had one block of wool, but one of the sheep had refused to yield its fur. Stupid animal.

_Says you._

Shut up already!

One of the remaining sheep looked at me fearfully, pleading with its hilariously crossed eyes, _please don't kill me. _I wasn't going to, though, as I had what I wanted. I found my way back to my hidey-hole in the hill in the growing darkness and dashed inside, crafting myself a bed from the materials I had in my chest. I mined four more blocks away from the wall and placed my bed down there. It was then that I noticed my two-block-high doorway that was very much lacking in the door department. Very, very dangerous. I rummaged in the chest and took the single dirt block I had left, blocking the upper half of the doorway with it. Now nothing could get through except the bloodthirsty wolves that frequently spawned in taiga biomes.

_Nice life you got there. I'm counting down the seconds until you lose it._

Thanks. Really reassuring.

_You're welcome._

I was being sarcastic!

_I wasn't._

I sighed and decided I ought to go to sleep before it got too dark.

"You can only sleep at night."

What? It _is _night, you stupid little... I looked out of the little gap in my door. It was still too bright outside for monsters to spawn.

I didn't want to get _any _closer to those light levels.

_Because you're a coward._

How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?

_As many as you want. I'm not going to._

I looked out the "window" to see that it was, in fact, quite bright outside. I watched the squids spinning happily in the water next to the swamp, carefree little things that they are. _They _didn't have to worry about being brutally murdered at nightfall.

_What, in the same way that you brutally murdered those sheep?_

Quiet, you.

I tried jumping a few times to relieve the slight boredom. My little hidey-hole currently was only two blocks high, so it was rather amusing. And painful. More painful than amusing, really.

Noticing the growing dusk, I turned to my bed and tried clicking on it a few times.

"You can only sleep at only sleep at only sleep at only sleep at only sleep at only sleep at night."

Stupid bed.

It was getting _really, really _dark outside now. _Let me sleep let me sleep let me sleep let me sleep..._

Finally, I was lying down in the bed and my eyes were closing as sleep overcame me.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Goodnight, coward._

Quiet, you.


	2. Day Two: Almost Mushroom Soup

**A/N: More failures for your amusement. Enjoy. **

I crawled out of the bed with great reluctance, breath clouding in the frosty morning air. _Warm bed, cold biome, warm bed, cold biome... _unfortunately, I had things to do, a lack of people to see. I bashed the dirt block that was my makeshift door out of the way and emerged from my little hidey-hole to an icy world, the eastern horizon just losing its tangerine tinge, the sky otherwise a lovely azure.

I decided that I'd do it today, no hesitation; no procrastination. I'd conquer that _blasted _dungeon, and I'd do it right _now! _I leaned into my den and stashed all my things safely in the chest, turning to the dungeon once more.

I could do this.

I yelled a battle cry and ran into the water, preparing to sink into the dungeon's chilly depths. Down, down, down...

I hit randomly at the blocks with my sword, hoping to kill any mobs in the area. But I was still sinking! I would drown! I surfaced, panicky, not wanting to lose my sword.

_Coward._

I would have done it!

_But you didn't._

Okay... this time, I would _really _do it. Even _if _I drowned! It wouldn't be too hard to make another stone sword, after all.

Down, down, down...

I was in.

OHMYGOSHIT'SDARK.

DARK.

DARK.

Lava!

Carried by the flowing water, I emerged in a cave where there was lava pouring lazily out of the wall. There was an arrow floating on the ground next to it.

Crap.

But this skeleton had to be dead; otherwise there wouldn't be an arrow on the ground. I decided to head back into the alleged "dungeon" and see if there was anything in there.

I _really _should have made some torches.

I looked back to the water. It was pitch-black, coal-black, bloody _cave-_black! I couldn't see a thing!

I really, _really _should have made some torches.

_No chickening out now. You're at least ten blocks underground and that cave blackness is your only way up. Good luck, coward._

Ever so motivational.

_I try._

With these delightful thoughts on my mind, I leapt towards the waterfall and sprung through the chilly liquid, leaping, bouncing towards the light of the surface.

I made it up.

_Good job. Coward._

Quiet, you.

I seemed I'd be better off making some torches and _then _seeing what was down there. But where would I find the coal?

I wandered up a hill and across the snowy terrain, hoping for a miraculous coal-containing cliff. I noticed a little group of roses and thought absently about iron golems. Those thingswere _scary. _I didn't want to go _too _far from my hidey-hole without a map or something, though.

Breaking into a sprint for a couple of seconds, I noticed I was missing three units of hunger. I ought to find food, so I set out to do so.

Sheep. Inadequate; you couldn't eat lamb in Minecraft.

_Baa. _Another sheep.

_Thwump, thwump, thwump, thwump- _the only sound was my footsteps on the snow.

Two more blasted sheep! They seemed to like taiga biomes. Where were all the chickens? The cows? The pigs? Jumping down the hill and landing in a river, I wondered if you could eat squid. It was unlikely.

And there was my little fox-hole again. Maybe the marsh across the water would prove more abundant in the area of food-bearing animals?

Another sheep. A _black _sheep. Interesting. Sheep, sheep, sheep- wait, were those mushrooms underneath the trees? Score! I grabbed four before I remembered that you needed both red and brown mushrooms to make mushroom soup.

Crap.

_Baaa! _Another bloody sheep! I told it to go away, but it just stared at me. Stupid animal. I walked further across the deep green marsh grass before I noticed a small white shape splashing happily in the water.

A chicken! I was in luck!

"Prepare to die!" I told it, and it proceeded to flee through the water from my presence. "No! Wait! Come back!" I begged. It stopped.

_It seems you're the chicken whisperer. Seeing as they're pretty much your own kind, it's not that surprising._

Ignoring this, I slaughtered the bird with one swipe of my sword and collected its meat and a feather. Yum. The meat, not the feather.

I made my way down the river and back to my den, grabbed my pickaxe from my chest and mined eight blocks of stone before I found I already had nine. Whoops. I crafted my freshly-mined stone into a nice furnace and stuck my chicken in there along with some wooden planks. The furnace lit up the place with a lovely warm light and in no time at all the meat was done.

Attaching the remaining block of planks back to my handy utility belt, I ate the chicken and decided I'd expand my den a little. Following small escapades with uncooperative terrain, my humble abode was a bit bigger and much nicer-looking. I'd really have to build an above-ground house soon and turn this den into a mine.

I darted outside to check the time. Approximately three, four o' clock. Plenty of time.

VWMMMMM.

I jumped and let out a yelp of surprise. Cave noise! I was obviously near a cavern or cave system of some kind; it probably came from the dungeon, in fact.

_You should have seen the look on your face!_

Quiet, you.

I jumped onto a tree, thinking more now about that above-ground house. Maybe I could go to that jungle and make a nice tree house, or would that be too far away?

Hey, red mushrooms!

Across the river and up the hill, pick the mushrooms and admire my handiwork. I could make a bowl out of wood and make some stew and feel a great sense of achievement! Yay! The house could wait; mushroom soup was nigh! With a whoop of delight I raced across the terrain towards my subterranean dwelling.

Whoops... wrong way... ahahaha...

I noticed jungle foliage amongst the tips of the pines and headed that way. The jungle looked so beautiful... I couldn't wait to go there. Following the frost-touched shoreline that I now stood on, I made my way back to my den, intent on making soup.

Easily distracted as I am, I couldn't help but notice some squid swimming around in the marshes waters. My curiosity was aroused- _could _you eat squid? I bounced over to one and killed it with a couple of swipes of my sword, collecting its experience orbs and two ink bladders. Didn't squids only have one? But this was Minecraft. It didn't have to make sense. The tension in the air was palatable as I detached the ink bladder from my tool belt and held it up, hand ready to right-click and consume it...

I couldn't. How sad.

It was then that I noticed.

It was DARK.

Oh, no...

I raced across the water, faster, faster, _why won't you go any bloody faster? _The footsteps of sheep on the shorelines made me jump and I could have _sworn _I heard a footstep on stone...

Then I was outside my hidey-hole and darting inside, leaping into bed and pulling the covers up as though they would protect me.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_You never learn, do you?_

No. No I do not.


	3. Day Three: Early Riser

**A/N: I have now watched the Yogscast up to part 8. HILARIOUS! It made me want to play Minecraft, so I started this a day early. Did I mention this updates on Saturdays? Well, it does. So there. As is evident in this chapter, I should possibly change my username to "Sadism" or "Murderousness". Read on to find out why, remembering all the while that this **_**has **_**been dramatised. I may or may not have actually thought these things. MWAHAHAHAHA!**

I climbed out of bed with rather less reluctance than yesterday and headed out into the soft light of dawn, the sky jet-black except for the tangerine eastern horizon. I looked around a moment before remembering yesterday's quest:

Mushroom soup!

I headed back inside and set upon my crafting table, placing three blocks of planks on the surface to receive four bowls! I gleefully stuck one in the bottom middle square and placed the two fungi above it. There, in the results square, was the fulfilment of my dream- mushroom soup.

I attached it to my utility belt before holding the mystical substance in my hands and staring at it reverently. This was the moment. The moment of truth, the moment of legend.

I ate it.

It was _disgusting. _

I barely resisted the urge to spit the accursed stuff out and forced myself to swallow before gagging. Well, that was disappointing. At least it was filling.

Curiosity satisfied, I decided to chop down a tree or three and begin to build my above-ground abode. After making a stone axe (a useful implement, I thought) I headed outside and prepared to chop down the nearest tree. It was then that I noticed the moon.

In the sky.

_Rising._

Whoops.

_Well, I knew you were an early riser, but this is pretty funny._

Quiet, you.

_You know I won't._

I will _make _you.

_No. You won't._

Shut up.

_Only if you kill something._

What? You'll only stop pestering me if I commit _murder?_

_Yes._

Fine then. I would throw caution to the wind and play lumberjack in the dark, and if any monsters came along I would chop them into carrot sticks!

_I like that attitude. Pity it won't last long._

I attacked the nearest tree with the help of a dirt tower and dropped to the ground again, curious at the lack of mob calls. A check of the menu told me that the game was, in fact, on easy mode. Where were all the nocturnal beasts of doom and destruction?

Thirty-six blocks of wood were in my possession when I saw it. There it was, splashing happily in the icy river. A skeleton, bow in phalanges. Oh, no...

_Go on. Kill it._

But it's so peaceful!

_It's an artificial-intelligence skeletal archer that is _programmed _to shoot your lack of virtual brains out the first chance it gets. It is _not _peaceful._

Well, you're being mightily supportive today. What's got into you? Hold on, did you say _lack of _virtual brains-?

_Just kill it or I'll call you coward for the rest of your in-game life._

Okay! Fine, fine! "Here, Mr. Skeleton... or miss skeleton... I'm not an anthropologist, so I can't really tell... hey, if Minecraft was real life and we brought Bones into it would she be able to identify-?

_Just kill it!_

I took a tentative step forward, then another. One to the left, under the branches of a pine. It was _then _that I noticed some bone-white movement in that direction and a zombie on the hillside and the glowing red eyes of a spider and I'm going to die you stupid conscience this is all your bloody fault oh no oh crap oh boy oh man...

_There goes the gung-ho attitude._

Shut up!

The skeleton was out of the river now, strolling comfortably along the bank. I took a fearful step back as it headed towards me, but it turned away again and I breathed. Two tentative steps to the right, down onto the shore... y'know what, maybe I should just go and sleep...

_Can't turn back now._

Fine. Okay, I needed a strategy... maybe if I could coax it towards me I could- my eyes widened. Its empty eye sockets were fixed on me and it was walking towards me.

_This is your chance to be brave. Unfortunately, you're still a scaredy-cat._

I would show that conscience of mine. I would kill this skeleton. I would do it! The creature leapt into the icy river and, coming into range, shot an arrow at me that struck my shoulder painfully. I leapt into the water with an almighty cry and waved my sword vaguely in its general direction in the hope that it would die. I managed to hit it up onto the opposite bank and into the hill and finally it vanished in a puff of rancid smoke. Coughing, I picked up the wondrous hoard of two arrows and two bones and the items zoomed into my backpack. I had done it! I was Mellifluousness, the Great Skeleton-Slayer! No beast of the night would stand in my way! I gave a triumphant and more than slightly psychopathic cackle, whipping around and brandishing my sword with murder in my eyes. "Come on out, monsters! It's carrot stick time!"

_I'm impressed, if a little disturbed. I didn't know you had it in you to be a psychopath._

Well, I do! Now I'm going to kill everything in sight and _like _it!

_Wow... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make you kill it after all._

Oh, it was a _brilliant _idea, my dear conscience!

_It's exactly that- your opinion- that makes me rethink it. _

I climbed the hill, looking around for any more monsters. None there, none there... aha! I saw movement through the trees- a zombie, looking around absently and possibly pondering the meaning of life. I didn't care; it was _dead! _I took a tentative step or two towards it before getting a hold of myself and charging with an almighty yell. Whack, whack, whack, too close! I leapt back with a cry of pain as it took a swat at me. This only helped to further provoke me, however, so I hacked at it a few more times before it fell to the ground and vanished in a puff of rancid smoke. Victory was mine! I picked up the two pieces of rotten flesh that littered the snowy ground and looked around for more prey.

Silence. The footsteps of a sheep sounded from in front of me and the offending animal barely spared me an eye-crossed glance before continuing its quest for who-knows-what. Where were all the monsters?

Suddenly fire ran down my back and I whipped around to face another zombie's fetid breath. I killed (or re-killed) it with a few deadly swipes of my sword and its flesh and experience orbs were mine also.

Red eyes were visible through the foliage and the _shcee-oo _of a spider could be heard. Two of the glow-eyed brutes descended from the trees, mandibles open hungrily, but neither they nor any beast could overpower Mellifluousness, the Mighty Monster-Slayer!

I sighted a skeleton on the icy beach and gleefully ran to meet it, engaging in an epic, not to mention cold, archer-warrior duel in the freezing water against the dramatic backdrop of purpling sky. As usual, I was the victor!

Not much worse for wear, I hopped up onto the ice, observing a sheep trotting about for a moment before going ice-skating. Brilliant! I nearly ended up back in the water a few times, but it was altogether rather exhilarating.

Oh, it was nearly dawn. That would mean the fiery deaths of all the skeletons and zombies in the area; which would be a shame since I would be deprived of things to kill.

_Okay, now you're just scary. Change your name to "Genocide" or something; it fits better._

Hmm... _Genocide. _I dunno, I'm kind of liking the sound of that...

_Oh my gosh, _NO. _You are _not _renaming yourself "Genocide". That would make you bloody _terrifying.

I like the sound of terrifying.

_All you did was kill a few monsters! There is no need whatsoever to become a serial killer!_

What if I want to?

_NO._

Okay, fine... crossing the river, I located a whopping eight saplings floating around the area where I had chopped down a tree. I picked them up and set about planting them, dispersing them evenly throughout unoccupied spaces of grass.

_Good, good, think about the environment. A nice, non-murderous topic._

I had a nice, easy stroll back to my den where I decided I'd make my thirty-six trunk blocks into planks. Much to my surprise, I found that the pine made a darker type of planks which I could not stack with the normal kind. How peculiar! Well, it was never too early to start building a house- since I had the entire day ahead of me, I might as well start right away!

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully; I found a nice, big space and built quite an impressively-sized building. I chopped down a few trees, gathered some more wood, started on a floor and ceiling. I began to think about a second storey to it. It would be nice, I thought, to have a flat roof from which one could survey the surrounding terrain.

All my things were quickly moved into my new base of operations and by the time dusk was encroaching all thoughts of murder I had harboured the previous night had completely left my mind, and I leapt into bed quite happily and began to drift off into sleep.

_Goodnight. Genocide._

'Night.


	4. Day Four: In Search of Coal

**A/N: Happy Saturday! I brought you a chapter as a gift.**

_Good morning, readers. Seeing as the chapter has started and Mellifluousness isn't up yet, I'm going to take the time to tell you all her deepest secrets. _

WHAT. I sat bolt upright in bed and glared at the sky for want of something better to glare at. Good, it was clear and blue rather than starry and black.

_Darn. And I was so close, too. It's just like you to crush the dreams of your poor, lonely conscience._

Ignoring it- her- thing, I continued work on the ceiling I had run out of time to finish last night. Of course, the first thing I did was block the top of my makeshift dirt stairs, forcing myself to use up some more dirt blocks and build a little tower.

Soon I was completely out of wood, so I went out to get some more. Or at least, I _made _to go get some more. Suddenly the floor was looking _awfully _far away...

_Oh, that is funny._

Not for me. Shut up.

I dug away one of the dirt blocks from the 'tower' and hopped down to the ground where I was startled by a sudden bout of music. Beautiful, glorious music. Oh, how I love this game!

I chopped down trees and collected and placed saplings while dancing to the beat of this lovely tune. I imagined myself flying over the land, showing off the beauty of Minecraft as the music played.

Soon I had five saplings left and had gathered forty-four trunk blocks. Perfect! I would have plenty of pine wood to finish my ceiling, and possibly the floor too.

I ended up with two sixty-fours and a forty-eight of wood with which to finish the roof. By midday, I sealed the hole above my staircase and began on the floor.

I cleared the snow from the ground with the help of a stone shovel, musing that I could make some snow golems if I found pumpkins. Soon the floor was made of delightful dark wood, but I found that I had to make a hole in the wall near the back of the house simply because it was so _dark. _That would have to be fixed.

_Oh, look, you'll have to go find some coal. Onwards, Mellifluousness! For excitement, for adventure, for your soon-to-be-non-existent life!_

Oh, gee, thanks.

_You are most welcome._

But I would heed the words of my conscience! I would go out across the taiga in search of coal, as soon as I fixed that dirt block underneath the door! I did so, replacing it with wood, and set out. Oh, wait, I was hungry. I went back inside and put some chicken in the furnace along with some wood. When it was finally done, I ate it and resolved to set out.

_It's about time, too. You really are very good at procrastinating._

I began my march across the snowy terrain, stone sword in hand. Over hills and down dales, weaving my way through the pines, skirting frozen-over pools of water and leaping up rises.

Of course, I didn't notice that the sun was setting.

And then the first few waves of darkness spread over the land.

_Well done. You're going to get lost and die._

Uh-oh. This is _not _good. I reached the side of a frozen river and my jaw dropped open at the sight of vine-hung trees and vibrant green on the opposite bank.

A jungle.

What to do? I could proceed into it and explore, risking completely losing my way and getting stuck in there like the last time I went into a jungle, or I could head back home and leave the coal-search for another day.But really, it was a _jungle..._

I reached a decision. I dashed across the ice, crossed a block-wide stretch of water and dove into the trees. I leapt up onto leafy platforms and wound my way between vines before I started hearing a strange popping noise.

Pop. Pop-pop. Poppop-pop-pop-pop. Pop. What could possibly be making such a sound? I took a few more steps forward and stopped to listen again.

Pop-pop. Pop-op-pop _crackle-crackle-crackle..._

Fire! Where was it, though? I decided to investigate. Looking around the canopy, I could detect no source of light but I thought the noise was coming from my left, so I headed that way, stopping to listen every few steps. _Crackle-crackle-crackle... _and what could be making that infernal popping? I hopped up a few hills, using vines to help me... _crackle-crackle-crackle... _maybe the noise was coming from inside the cliff...?

_Clonk._

Oh, crap. I inched around the edge of a cliff, trying to spot the skeleton, listening for the clink-clonk of its bones. Nothing; the land was dark and silent. I seemed to have lost the popping sound and the fire, too. Great.

I leapt onto a tree to survey the land and was rewarded with the most beautiful of sights, a frosty, dim panorama of pine trees and ice and rivers. Lovely!

Urrrrrgh.

_Oh, look, a zombie's come to play. I'd say that it's going to eat your brains, but you don't have any to be eaten._

The undead man was wandering around on the forest floor, arms out ahead of him. He hadn't noticed me yet. A walked a little way along my current leafy platform and, seeing a gap ahead of me, decided I could easily make the jump. I walked calmly towards it, preparing to leap.

It was only when I was sitting on the top of a smaller tree, legs feeling as though they were on fire, that I realised that the gap had been _two _blocks wide. I stifled a groan of pain lest the zombie hear me and stood up again. I needed to find my way back to my house and I needed to do it _now._

Just then, it started to rain. I noticed a zombie right behind me and hacked at it, surprised, until it disappeared in a puff of smoke. Now thoroughly drenched and totally terrified because the zombie had looked an awful lot like Steve or Herobrine in the dimness of night, I collected the experience orbs and rotten flesh that it had dropped and looked around, shivering. I made my way out of the trees and onto the ice-fields beyond the shore.

It was snowing there. Oh, how lovely. Unfortunately, the glow-eyed spider that stood near me on the ice seemed to think the same. I stepped to either side of it, trying to work out how to deal with this latest issue, when it noticed me with a cry of "Shcee-oo!" and raced towards me. I killed it with a few swipes of my sword, ashamed that I had to do such a thing in the surrealistic, dancing snow. "We could have been friends. We could have enjoyed the snow together. I could have taken you back to my house and we could have shared a not-so-Christmas dinner and have been all happy, but you chose violence and forced me to defend myself. I'm sorry, friend spider. I'm sorry." I left that place with a rather heavy heart, vowing to come back some day and mark the spider's grave.

But wait, what was this hole in the ground? I raced towards the massive pit, which I found was simply an enormous hole with lava in the bottom and the ubiquitous snowflakes spiralling down into it and coating its ridges with a blanket of white. How pretty. I wondered why it was there, and thoughts of Israphel crept their way into my mind.

_It's a natural hole, girl. You've been watching too much Yogscast._

Yes, right, I have. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from my right and whipped around to find a creeper approaching me. I gave a shriek of surprise before chopping it into pieces. _Poor creeper, _I thought as I collected the sulphur it dropped. Resolving that I had not seen the aforementioned death-pit on my way to the rainforest, I decided I would have to head in another direction and into the taiga. I chose one that looked relatively appropriate and dashed into the trees.

It was when I had killed another spider, outran a zombie, creeper and skeleton, fallen off cliffs enough times to bring my health down to three hearts, sprinted far enough to bring my hunger down to two, chased a few chickens around for their meat and collected enough snow on my body to make me look like a snow golem that I decided I was...

_Totally lost._


	5. Day Five: Thunderstruck

**A/N: It's 8:11 at night on Tuesday. I just finished watching the Yogscast- that is, episode 37. I WANT MOAR ARGHARGHARGHARGHARGH! **

***Ehem *** **Now that I have regained my composure... enjoy a complementary chapter. A day later than I started it, but still. Roll the words!**

I blinked the snow that had crystallised on my eyelashes out of the way and stood up.

_You look like a snow golem, only even less attractive._

Well, it seemed my conscience was as supportive as ever. Now to locate my home base; a high vantage point from which I could survey the terrain would do nicely. I made my way around the tree I had rested under, looked around... and stopped.

Through the falling snow I could make out desert.

Crap.

_Head to the left. You came from that direction, no? That is the most sensible way to go, as you certainly did _not _come from desert._

I heeded the words of my conscience and made my way into a little dip and up the other side before I stopped again. The sight that greeted me was less than satisfactory.

Oak forest.

Crap.

_Right, scratch that. Try heading... left again?_

I shrugged and turned around, marching up a little hill. I had quite a clear view from there, uninhibited by the leaves of pines.

Jungle trees.

Crap.

_You're on your own._

With a growl of annoyance I peered over the edge of my vantage point. There was a bit of a drop, so I walked a little way along it until I found a safer way down. I wound through the trees, up a hill or two, through a pretty little glade of flowers and the ubiquitous white flakes. Was that ice visible through the trunks? I decided to investigate; there were many icy lakes near my home.

Then again, this _was _a taiga biome. Ice was to be expected. It was worth a shot, though, so I advanced.

It was indeed ice, a massive great plain of it, stretching nearly to the jungle opposite. Great, I had come in a circle. Now I was down to one unit of hunger, too; did starving to death hurt much, I wondered?

Well, with only three hearts of health left and no energy to run, I was pretty much doomed if I met any monsters. Which would be a better way to die, starvation or to be ripped limb from limb and/or blown up?

Returning home suddenly seemed a very attractive prospect.

I leapt up a couple of rises, heading despairingly towards a hill. I could feel my energy draining with each step I took. As I neared the hill, I noticed about a quarter of my remaining hunger already depleted; I would need to find food, and soon.

_Brrd brrd-rdd._

I froze.

An enderman.

Crap.

Eyes carefully focused on the ground, I spun around slowly, looking for it. I had a morbid fascination for the otherworldly creatures, and I would love to see one. Another lovely burble came from my left, so I looked that way, but _girrrgh- _a zombie gurgled aggressively and I dispatched it quickly as it approached me.

I was then that I noticed my incredible lack of hunger units.

I was going to starve.

CRAP.

I started moving forwards, but I stopped again, unsure of where to go. Only I didn't stop; _I kept moving. _What was going on? A shiver ran down my spine and I gave a cry of panic as my legs refused to obey me. Was I being hypnotised? Had an enderman done weird Ender-power-freakiness stuff on me? "HELP!" I yelled to no-one in particular. This was seriously happening! My fingers were nowhere near the keyboard and I was walking into a freaking _tree!_

_Okay, this is pretty creepy._

Suddenly, I stopped again. What had just happened? I was terrified beyond belief as thoughts of Herobrine, Israphel, Notch and pretty much any other Minecraft legend invaded my head. Believe you me, my friends, I do not jest- my legs refused to obey me for a moment there. A bug? I THINK NOT.

Well, actually, a bug is a pretty reasonable explanation, but that takes all the fun, excitement and mystery out of it...

Wait... what was this? I had stopped on the edge of a _river!_ A very familiar-looking river, at that- I was close to home! I had to be!

_This is getting creepier by the second. Why did you mysteriously stop _right _on the edge of this river?_

Oh, gosh. My conscience was right! Why _had _stopped at a familiar landmark? I remembered quite clearly killing some chickens here... could this be a bug, a mere coincidence?

I THINK NOT.

But, as I headed over to what I thought was that well-known bend, I discovered that it perhaps _was _a mere coincidence. This was not the river I knew, this was someplace else entirely.

_There go all your conspiracy theories._

I will keep my conspiracy theories, thank-you-very-much! This could well be the grounds of an adventure beyond the beyond... of... beyond-ness! I could make something of this!

_You've been watching too much Yogscast._

Yes, well, maybe I have... I climbed the hill looking rather forlorn as my merciless conscience crushed my dreams of adventure.

_I specialise in dream-crushing._

Further I ascended until I was near the hill's summit. I looked out over the snowy scene, trying to pinpoint any abnormal rectangular prisms of wood. None in sight; I was so going to die up here.

Then... there it was again! _Pop! Poppop-pop pop-pop-pop! _The mysterious popping noise! It was all falling into place! Coupled with the crackle of fire I had heard in the jungle, my utter loss of direction, the scary deprivation of motor control and now the popping sound I had heard for the second time, I calculated that Israphel and Herobrine had teamed up and were together planning to...

ROAST EXPLOSIVE MARSHMALLOWS.

_Ooh, I got a shiver down my lack of a spine at that. Seriously, girl, that's just sad. Go find your house already._

Adamant in my position, I refused to heed her... its... words! Herobrine and Israphel were roasting explosive marshmallows, and that was that.

I began to head off through the trees again, proud that I had reached a conclusion, and retreated with a yelp of surprise when I saw a creeper approaching, heading to the _right, _strangely enough. It was only when it had exploded, leaving me unharmed a little way down the hill, that I thought about it. Didn't creepers usually head to the _left?_

_Oh no, an abnormal creeper just as you reached the conclusion of the Marshmallow Conspiracy! Quick, someone yell something about alien invasions! Wait a second... go check that, will you?_

I did, the Minecraft wiki being very useful in this case. In its direct words: "the player should keep in mind that creepers move forwards and to the right (your left) when in pursuit."

_Oh my. That's... was there an update that changed that or something? Please say that the whole AI thing changed that._

My conscience sounded panicky now. I was excited; I was probably seeing a pattern where there was none, but really, could this all be coincidence?

No, conscience. I think not.

I slowly made my way up the hill, trying to find a route that would not need me to bust away blocks, for I knew such actions would only deplete my hunger further. I fell quite a few times, much to my annoyance, and finally I dropped enough blocks to shave another full heart off my health. Wincing and gritting my teeth, I stood up again. I'd have to be more careful.

Eventually, I reached the place I had been in before, the same spot the creeper had exploded. I avoided the little depression with a shiver, but not before I heard the popping sound again, coupled with the crackle of a flame on the edge of hearing. I grinned. Explosive marshmallows. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps invaded my thoughts. Taught as a wire, I whipped around, trying to locate the source of the noise.

Clonk-ink.

Crap.

My health bar and hunger bar leapt to the frantic beating of my heart. I was dead if that skeleton found me. What to do? I was terrified!

_Stop being such a wimp. You don't have anything of value; go out there and fight like a man!_

Oh, yeah, like I'm going to listen to you. Wait, what do you mean by "like a man"?

_Go fight the skeleton! You die today, girl!_

I'd rather avoid that, thanks.

_Then go run for your wimpy, pathetic life, you coward._

So supportive.

_I try._

I was being sarcastic.

_I wasn't._

I decided to go for it. What had I to lose? I quickly went back into the game and dashed forward- at a walking pace, curse my hunger- and gave a start as the skeleton's bones clinked again and an arrow _fwiiit-thuked _into the snow behind me. I didn't spare the creature a glance as fear gave my feet wings. I zipped towards a cliff edge and made an abrupt turn just before I fell off, ending upon a block-wide ledge. Panting with something more than exhaustion, I took the time to look back towards the hill's peak. No skeleton was visible between the few pines growing there; I had lost it; I was safe. It was then that a familiar black-striped rock caught my eye, poking its sooty nose out of the hillside.

Coal.

Oh, come _on._

I tentatively inched onto the narrow protrusion, ever watchful for the rattle-y undead. Once onto the ridge I whipped out my pickaxe and mined away at the coal blocks, eventually acquiring seventeen and depleting the vein. Oh, gosh. I wondered how far away my base was and whether I would live to reach it now that I had what I was looking for. But before I could even get out of the small hole in the cliff edge I had dug myself, I discovered it had happened again. I was walking, and I was _not _meaning to do it. Finally, I stopped again, breathing a sigh of relief. Hey, why was the sky so dar-

BRAOWWWMM! The thunder _roared_ as lightning ripped the sky in two, driving white fingers into the snow with horrendous glee. My stomach flipped and I could have sworn my heart stopped beating for a second there. The snow had turned to a thunderstorm, and _just _as I had found coal, too. I was too tired to launch into conspiracy theories again, though.

_Good. Let's not start that again... well, seeing as you're now in a thunderstorm and hiding away in a little fox-hole, this would seem a perfect time to sleep._

Hmm... perhaps my conscience was correct. This would be a good time to stop. I curled up in a ball in one of the stone corners of the cave and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Herobrine says "goodnight to you too."_

Quiet, you.


	6. Day Six: Death and Friendermen

**A/N: Nnnng. I have writers' block. Buzz off, Phil! I've named my writers' block, you see. I wish he would go away. Oh yeah, and about the whole "updates on Saturdays" thing... scratch that. This'll update whenever I want it to! Seeing as it's now the holidays, I'll have extra time to write and subsequently get writers' block. Be warned; this chapter is long. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.**

I sat up.

The snow was still falling, the sky dark. I leapt up onto the ledge of dirt outside my little alcove and looked around aimlessly as the chunks loaded. The silence was deafening. The loud _crunch _of my footsteps on the dirt made me jump. It was so quiet... I waited for a stroke of thunder. It didn't come. Remembering to breathe, I ventured out of the cave and onto the hilltop. _Fwiiit! _It's a good thing skeletons are terrible shots most of the time, or I would have been dead meat. The creature stood rather calmly beneath the trees, waiting until it got the chance to shoot again. I didn't give it the opportunity; I bolted. At a walking pace.

Down the hill and across the snowy terrain; I could hear its bones rattling and feet crunching on the snow as it chased me. I skirted the oak forest and ran onto the ice fields, accompanied now by a pair of sheep. I stopped to listen; I had lost it.

BRAOOOM! The land coruscated white and I jumped two blocks in the air as thunder and lightning struck. Breathing heavily (and half a heart closer to death, I noticed), I looked around, wondering where to go next. I certainly couldn't head back the way I had come, or the skeleton would kill me. I began to wander across the ice, hoping this direction would carry me back to my home. But what was that...? I peered through the spiralling snowflakes, just able to make out a tall figure standing on a little outcrop of ice, gazing into the jungle on the other side of the water...

The creature turned its head and I could make out glowing amaranthine eyes. An enderman.

I decided I'd go greet it. "Hello over there!" I called, heading across the ice. It turned as I approached, seemingly hearing my cry, but it turned away again. Just as I grew near it, it stepped into the water, flashed red for a moment... and disappeared. Lighting illuminated its departure and thunder announced its leaving.

_It seems the creature sees sense. It would rather commit suicide than be with you._

It's an artificial intelligence; that doesn't mean anything!

_Says the conspiracy theorist._

But, turning around, I saw the enderman again, meandering about on the ice. It was really dark now, night further darkening the storm-afflicted taiga. I approached the creature (who I have now decided is male) and he greeted me with a little burble. I felt rather safer with him, as though he would protect me from the other monsters.

Of course, he was more likely to rip me limb from limb if I looked at him, but it was nice to dream.

I could make out a creeper standing on the far edge of the ice, under a tree and next to a sheep. Careful not to train my character's crosshair on my otherworldly friend as he wandered around, I wondered what to do next. I followed him around for a while as he told me helpful things such as "Brrd-rrd." and "Brr rid!" I spotted another creeper on the shore and feared for my life. Following my newest companion around was quite relaxing, though. I could keep this up until morning, I thought.

Suddenly, the enderman stepped into the water and teleported out of sight with a yell of "Brah!" I looked for him rather tentatively, fearful of staring into his eyes by accident.

Ah, there he was. Quite close to shore, not to mention a pair of spiders and a zombie. The glow-eyed arachnids wandered aimlessly, looking formidable as though that was their only purpose in life. I looked to the ground, for the dividing lines between chunks are clearly visible in ice. I was barely a block out of the sight range of the three hostile mobs on the shore; would I risk death simply to be near my obsidian-scaled friend?

Yes. Yes I would.

I took a tentative step over the chunk-line, flinching as the spiders' heads turned towards me. It had stopped snowing abruptly and I could see the hatred in their scarlet eyes, the yearning for my blood; the beasts charged towards me, aiming to kill. I sliced at the air as they approached and managed to get a hit or two in edgeways, but the spiders overpowered me, forcing me to the ground. The two-and-a-half hearts I had left never stood a chance.

I died.

I gaped dumbly at the text that asked me whether I wanted to respawn or return to the title screen. How did-? What did-? How could-? But- but- _what?_

I awoke in my pitch-black and gloomy house, standing near my bed. How could this have happened? I just... _died. _But now I was alive again, and it was still the middle of the night. I decided to sleep.

I awoke _again _and this time the content of my house was visible, if dim. I went outside, still shaking my head in disbelief. There was a spider scuttling around in the daylight, chittering happily. I went over to it, a little wary, but it didn't seem particularly interested in attacking me so I stroked its fuzzy head. Bidding it goodbye, I dashed out onto the ice-fields in the hope that, perhaps, my lost items were there. They weren't. I dejectedly made my way back to my house; all that hard work and I finally got coal, only to die. What to do now?

Suddenly, I remembered my chest and I brightened up. Surely I hadn't taken all my stuff with me on my adventure? I rushed inside and nearly broke the clasp on the front of the chest in my haste to open it. My face fell; the only thing in it was a couple of ink bladders, shoved into a corner. Great.

_Very well done there. You're not the best at thinking ahead, are you?_

I headed outside to enact Minecraft's signature move: punching trees. Soon I had a wooden axe and pickaxe in my possession and decided I'd go find some stone. This would be a good time to turn my foxhole into a mine, I thought. Soon I was there and had set up a crafting table inside to make myself a stone pick. I opened up the space a bit more, flooding the cave with sunlight as I punched away a two-by-two square of dirt blocks from the ceiling. Sheer luck made me mine away in the corner where my bed had once been and chance upon a vein of coal. Grinning at my own stupidity, I collected the precious rock and ended up with five pieces. This granted me twenty torches, and I mused that I could probably investigate that dungeon now. I made myself a stone axe and a sword, preparing for my newest quest.

Everything except the sword, pickaxe, eight dirt blocks and the torches was deposited in the chest back at the house, and I decided I was ready for action. Making my way back across the river and out onto a tiny dirt outcrop near my foxhole, I stood before the dark depression in the sand. Here we go!

I leapt in, sword in hand, sinking down, down, down... finally, I emerged from the waterfall, gasping for breath and randomly hitting out at the blocks around me. When my sword did not connect with anything living or undead, I turned around and placed a torch on the wall behind me. I blinked in the sudden light and made my way along a newly-revealed ledge, placing another few torches on the walls. An incredible lack of dungeon was exposed under the torchlight, just the six-by-two waterfall in its faintly circular cave and a bit of sand at its foot. Perhaps there was no dungeon and this was just a cave that had been generated without a roof? How mundane.

I froze when I noticed a skeleton standing next to the lava, but I needn't have worried because it chose that moment to step into the molten rock and wave its legs frantically as it burned to death. Very, very strange, I thought. I made my way over to where it had been standing and one of the first things I heard was pop. Pop. Pop-pop. I grinned. Explosive marshmallows. Near here were a pair of waterfalls flowing out from another cave over a tiny cliff, three blocks high, and nearly reaching the lava. I wondered if there was anything up there, so I investigated, finally making it up to the top after falling back down a few times. A torch placed on the left wall revealed a waterfall that seemed to come from the surface. Water dripped through the dirt ceiling; this was most likely under the floodplain between the swamp and the taiga. Perhaps this waterfall branched off the larger one I had thought was a dungeon? The cave stretched away to the right, so I advanced carefully into the dark, mounting my torches on the wall every few blocks. At a bend in the tunnel where it began to turn left again, part of the wall was made up of sand.

The cave eventually reached a dead end of mainly dirt, so I breathed again and turned back, more confident in the torchlight. Minecraft made fear of the dark a very rational thing. Suddenly, at the foot of the waterfall I noticed a peach-striped rock; iron! I gave a whoop of triumph and mined away at it, or at least went to. I found myself immersed in water and turned around to get back out again, coughing and spluttering as my legs carried me into the wall. Trying in vain to stop, I walked around in circles for a moment before finally my limbs ceased their rebellion. Sense of victory rather dampened, I mined myself six blocks of iron ore and resolved to go explore the cave beyond the lava. I descended the twin falls and let the current at their feet carry me towards the flowing magma before inching carefully past it and standing in front of the cave.

It was _huge! _Never before had I seen such a massive passageway, four blocks high and five wide, but it looked ten by ten. I was stiff with fear as I stared into the dauntingly large darkness, popping noises still sounding in my ears. There came a deep, foreboding rumble on the edge of hearing and I imagined a massive cave-beast growling at me to turn back. _"Leave this place," _it told me ominously.

I gulped and began to rethink entering the cave.

_Get on with it, coward._

I edged forward and fearfully plonked a torch on the wall. A memory of black-speckled stone entered my head and I turned around, my jaw dropping open as I sighted at least twenty blocks of coal littering the cave roof. Such a bounty could not go untapped; it was my duty as a Minecrafter to collect the whole freaking lot.

Approximately five minutes, a few third-degree burns, a lot of getting wet, a little staircase into the wall and a cobblestone block in place of the lava spring later, I had a wondrous forty pieces of coal in my possession and was no further into the aforementioned daunting cave. I felt I had done enough for now, however; it would be a good time to return to my house and sleep.

It was when I reached the dungeon waterfall and heard a few spiders' cries that I decided it was most likely night and therefore a good time _not _to return to the surface. Maybe I would explore the daunting cave after all.

I went into it and discovered that it was altogether quite prosaic. It was a short tunnel that ended in dirt and stone, nothing more. At least, I thought it was nothing more until I discovered the delightful amount of coal in the wall; it brought my total to seventy-four pieces. I was still hearing spider noises; were the things _following _me? It sounded as though they were splashing through the water in pursuit.

The coal collected and Daunting Cave lit up, I wondered if it was morning yet. I went over to the dungeon waterfall to see. The spiders were still chasing me, but the sky visible through the water was bright; it would be at least sort of safe to go up. I dove into the rushing water and saw spindly legs through the dimness; the cheeky beast was trying to attack me through the water! Holding my breath, I whipped out my sword and sliced its underbelly and that of its friend when it came into view. A few swipes later they were dead and it was safe to surface. I did so, taking a deep breath, and waded to shore. I shook myself dry wolf-style and climbed the hill past my foxhole before managing to fall into the hole in its roof. Exasperated with my own inattentiveness, I crawled out the entrance and made my way up the rise again before noticing a creeper on the opposite bank of the river, resting under a tree. I gave it a wide berth, hoping to avoid contact, but it noticed me and charged, leaping into the water to get to me. I hit at it repeatedly until finally it sank into the watery depths and I dove in to retrieve the experience.

I reached my house without much further excitement and placed torches on the walls, blocking up the hole near the back of the house. I put some iron in the furnace (amused by the fact that I was "cooking" it) and stepped back, wondering what to do next.

It was still light outside, so I couldn't sleep yet. I swept my gaze over the eleven-by-seven, dimly lit wooden box that was my virtual home and mused that it would look a lot better with windows, thinking back to the desert I had seen while lost. As soon as I had found some redstone and made a compass, I would go and get some sand.

I looked out the doorway, but the sky outside was still bright blue. What would I do until nightfall? I walked over to the chest and looked inside absently before heading back over to the door and going outside. Trees. Hmm.

I made another trip from door to chest and back again, returning with my stone axe. I headed outside and cut down trees until sundown, accompanied by the happy baas of sheep and, eventually, the beautiful music of Minecraft. Dusk approached as I had been looking around for chickens or something else edible, so I headed back into my faintly glowing house in the twilight and crawled into the loving embrace of the bed.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Goodnight._


	7. Day Seven: Terrible News

**A/N: Hello again! Did you miss me? I have terrible news, my friends. Terrible news. Read on to find out what it is... T_T (heh-heh, ghast face)**

THUMP.

I yelped and leapt to my feet, brandishing my sword at thin air. I had fallen out of bed. Suddenly the rest of my body caught up with my brain and I winced and stumbled, supporting myself on the wall. Half my health was gone, and all the fun and excitement with lava yesterday had left me covered in burns. I only had two hunger units left as well; I needed to eat. I staggered over to the door and opened it, peering outside. I ventured out, looking carefully around as though monsters could possibly have spawned while I was asleep. Seeing none, I sighed and decided I better go and find food. I blundered through the snow, walking into trees quite a few times and yet seeing nothing but sheep. A tiny overhang sheltered a brown mushroom at one point and I stared at it for a moment, contemplating soup.

_You must have left your brain in bed. Oh no, I remember now, you're always like this. Remember the last time you tried mushroom soup?_

My conscience was correct. Again. I needed to find some other kind of food. I continued through the frosty forest, searching for any food-bearing animal. Eventually I came to an iced-over lake, the shores of which, I noticed, were lined with sand! I collected fifteen fine white blocks and wondered what to do next.

I stopped playing for a while as I suddenly craved writing other stories, and I came back to the strangest of things.

Where was I?

I stood on the icy bank of a river, a hill rising up behind me and a portly pine standing guard on the opposite bank. A couple of sheep wandered around. To my right there was taiga on one side of the river, swamp on the other...

Ah. I remembered now; I was heading back towards my house. Perfect. I followed the river until I reached the outstretched arm of a hill, which I climbed up. I set out through the trees, heading for what was hopefully my house. I sighted jungle trees over the tips of the pines and apprehension arose in me.

_You're lost again. I just know it._

But there was the darkish wood peeking around a pine's trunk and I breathed a sigh of relief as I went inside. Looking around the dimly-lit wooden box, I mused that it was really quite creepy. Well, now that I had sand I could make glass and therefore windows! I went over to the furnace, removing the six iron ingots already in the results square and placing some coal (which I retrieved from the chest) in the bottom square and sand in the top. Before I knew it, it began to burn.

I thought of a suggestion made by dearest xoxLEXIxox, that I could place all my things in the chest and build an enormous dirt tower to pinpoint my house from. Once the tower was built, I could jump off without fear of losing my items! It was, in fact, a pretty good idea, so I decided to try it. Converting planks into sticks and placing a piece of cobblestone on top, I made myself a shovel and went outside to harvest some dirt. Music began to play and I simply stood there for a moment, relishing its beauty, swaying gently.

I had acquired a mere five pieces of dirt before sheer agony made me double over, clutching my stomach. What was going on? I scanned the forest, trying to find what horrendous beast was attacking me _now._

_The only horrendous beast that is attacking you is your own digestive system. You're starving, fool._

Oh. I paused the game, wondering how I'd stop this. That was it! I'd put all the stuff in the chest and go exploring. I did so, heading up the hill opposite my house. I wandered through the forest beyond, searching for nothing in particular. The taiga wind sank cruel claws into my already raw and burnt skin, probably relishing my pain, sadist that it is. I found shelter behind the trunks of trees, but it never lasted very long. I passed quite a few sheep and at one point I thought I saw a flash of pink through the trees- a pig, I wondered? - but it seemed to be only a red mushroom. Why was I not getting hurt? My searching was rewarded, however, for the next speck of moving white I saw was a chicken! I beat it to death unremorsefully and ate the meat it left behind. It was raw, but it tasted okay. I was relieved not to get salmonella from it and continued on my way.

It wasn't long before I reached the jungle and, surmising that this would be a good place to find food, went inside. I wandered around for a bit, found another chicken, and went off to write other things.

Now... now is when the terrible news starts. As some of you may already know, dear readers, my computer died on the third of December, 2012. It has now been resurrected by the kind people at QMB or MBQ or BMQ or BBQ or something like that and none of my writing was lost.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the World in Which We Fail...

I stared at the screen. Dumbstruck. Horrified. Repulsed. Dismayed. Perplexed. It had happened; the unthinkable had happened.

At the top was text in white:

Select World

This was on a light brown, dirt-block-textured background. Below it the light brown ended and turned much darker so that it was made to look like it was in a small depression. This was usually where all the selectable worlds were.

It was empty.

Completely and utterly empty.

There was no World in Which We Fail, Mark I or II. There was no Azariahland (my friend's world), no Flatmaine or BLOODY SLIMELAND. I might have had other worlds I cannot remember, but they were gone too. All my worlds were gone. GONE, GONE and GONE!

I couldn't believe it.

_I can't believe it._

I couldn't even muster the energy to sarcastically thank her for her reiteration. They were all _gone._

I'm sorry, dear readers. It's happened. What I had never expected to happen.

And I never even got to the End.

I hadn't reached the Nether.

I hadn't downloaded a mod or texture pack.

Hadn't been killed by ghasts.

Hadn't found iron.

Hadn't even started a _mine._

I would never find diamond or obsidian, have a chance to play with flint and steel, explore massive caverns or ravines or mine shafts, swum oceans, built a boat, made armour, the list could go on and on and on...

Well, there were two options now, depending on the wants of my readers. I could start again, make a new World in Which We Fail, or I could just stop here. I could try again or give up. I ask you, readers: what would you like? This is for you to decide.

I'll be seeing you then.

_I'll be figuring out how to strangle Notch without arms._

...Okay then...

See you next chapter...

If there will be one...

T_T


	8. Day Eight Sort of: Further News

Hey, look, I saw you! ^.^

Heh, heh, heh... author's note chapter, pretty much. I know I'm not allowed to do this, but I won't be making a habit of it, so don't worry. Sorry I couldn't reply to some of you by email, but Microsoft Outlook has decided I don't have an email account. I swear, my newly-repaired computer is stupider than it was before. Don't tell it I said that.

Anyway... thanks, guys. You're all so nice. I LOVE YOU GUYS! *crushing bear-hug*

You lot are the best reviewers a girl could have. Thanks so much for the offer, GrygrFlzr, and thanks to the rest of you for all your support.

Sassykat, I have tried your suggestion, but the appdata-y folder contained only "New World", something I started yesterday because I was too annoyed to write. I'm sorry, my friends, but the World in Which We Fail is...

_**GONE.**_

Anyone else need a tissue, or maybe we can just go make a bargain with Herobrine about the whole Notch thing?

_Don't worry; I've already had a talk with him about that, thanks to your friend "Sparkgirl64"._ _:)_

Oh, boy...

_Be very afraid. We're coming for you, Mojang...be warned..._

AS I WAS SAYING, I think I'll make a new world for you guys. Let's see how unfortunate I can be with my next spawn point, eh? There, there... *pats on back*

See y'all next chapter!


	9. Day One Again: Welcome to Ir Qas

**A/N: Welcome back. There would be an exclamation mark there, but I lack triumph. :(**

"I load up Minecraft; all the blocks just form this way!" I sang happily.

_You sound like an idiot. It would be tolerable if you sounded like an idiot who can sing, but you don't so it's not._

I ignored her- yes, she's definitely a "her" now- and logged in. MOJANG, the text in orange declared before it switched to the rotating background of the title screen. It was at a rather dizzying angle, so I clicked singleplayer and prepared to create a new world. I clicked the little button (clack! It cried) and typed in the box for its name, "TWIWWF III" or "The World in Which We Fail Aye-Aye-Aye". I decided I would give a seed this time, so I wrote in the box: theworldinwhichwefail. No capitals, no spaces, no nothing. A tight knot of anticipation formed in my stomach as I told it I was done with the options and prepared to click "Create New World".

Are you excited, Conscience? Who's an excited little conscience? Is it you? Is it you?

_No. It is not me._

Oh. That's a little... that's a little...

_Just click the button, will you?_

I clicked the button.

Switching level, generating level, simulating world for a bit, saving chunks...

CRUNCH-CRUNCH!

"Maw-aw!" a cow proclaimed.

I saw green grass, a few oaks and a birch off to my right. I had spawned between plains and forest; how convenient! A good space for a house and a ready supply of wood could be found here. I walked a few steps, computer lagging in protest, and punched down a birch tree and the oak beside it. I was rewarded with six pieces of wood from each, which I converted into forty-eight blocks of wooden planks total. The birch wood was a lovely light yellow colour. Having acquired wood, I decided I ought to survey my surroundings. I turned around to face the plains again and stopped dead.

A village stood barely a chunk away! How incredibly convenient! Perhaps this world wouldn't be so fail after all. I advanced towards the village at a sprint before I realised it was likely about two chunks away. No matter. I noticed a swamp to my right again; a good source of mushrooms, perhaps.

_You must have the memory of a geriatric goldfish. With Alzheimer's. And dementia. And amnesia._

Oh, right. I forgot about the whole soup thing.

_Again._

Yes, again... I was near the village now and could see a few villagers- testificates to some, so I guess I'll call them that now- milling around. I stepped onto their gravel pathway, slightly out of breath, and began to look around. I headed right (because right is always right, it seems) and passed a small house without a door. I passed another that had a door, only it must have been placed from the inside, so I destroyed it and replaced it. Much better, I thought. A little further and the road turned a corner. Shortly after this was another house, complete with stone steps that were blocked by two pieces of gravel as the path went up a level. I removed the two gravel blocks and destroyed the dirt that was underneath them, placing the gravel where the dirt had been. The way to the house was now clear and I went inside.

It was the type of house that had a ladder at the back of it, but was otherwise plain. I went up the ladder and it afforded me a lovely view of the village. There were quite a few of the smaller houses, mainly around the area I was in. Then there came three wheat fields, two on the left side of the road and one larger one on the right side. After those, there was a guard tower, church, whatever one wants to call it looming over the houses. I could make out a well and a large house, possibly a library, beyond that.

_That'sss a very nice village you got there..._

Ah, ha, ha. Very funny.

_I try. Sssssso very hard..._

I rolled my eyes and reached a decision. This place would be my new home, and for it to be my home it would need a name. I thought of a spelling error I had made earlier, typing "Ir qas" instead of "It was". That would be the village's name.

Ir Qas.

I felt so proud.

I knew what I had to do now. I went down the ladder and made a crafting table out of four of the oak planks, which I stuck in a corner. Some more planks were turned into sticks and I used them to make a sign by placing a stick in the bottom middle square and six plank blocks in the top squares. I picked my latest creation out of the results box and went outside to look for a suitable place to put it. Soon I found a path that didn't seem to go anywhere in particular, just stretched towards the forest and then stopped. I ran to the end of the road and turned around, slamming the sign down on the gravel. I wrote on it, of course.

Welcome to

Ir Qas

It read. I was so happy.

Sign now proclaiming the name of my home, I returned to my humble and door-less abode and fixed the whole door issue with six blocks of planks. I made myself a wooden sword, for I'd surely need it before the day was done, and a pickaxe. With these tools in my hands, I went to look for a good place to start a mine.

_You're making progress; well done. I've placed a bet with Phil that you'll die tonight and lose everything._

Supportive as ever, I see. You shouldn't gamble. Not even Conscience could put a damper on my high spirits, though; I had found a village, claimed myself a house, and now I was already going to start mining! I passed the priest- he'd need a name, too- and decided I should start a little distance from the village so as not to undermine it or anything. I moved off the path and found a suitable spot on the slope of a gentle rise where I began to dig. I dug it so that the stairs curved slightly, and in no time I hit rock and whipped out my near-useless pickaxe. It seemed I had removed only one block before I hit that most useful of materials- coal! I jumped up and down with delight (the tunnel was only two blocks high, so I made a mental note not to do that again) and harvested the lot. I had seven pieces in my inventory before I was suddenly pushed forward a pace and turned around to see what had happened. The librarian glared at me through his enormous nose, or maybe the enormous nose's librarian glared at me. He'd need a name. I decided he was Professor Gregory and knew that he shouldn't be in here. "You shouldn't be in here, Professor!" I told him. "It's not safe!" he just stared at me. I sighed. "Fine then, Mr. Mcstubbornpants. If you want to die from spider bites, then stay down here. It's fine by me."

I kept mining. He didn't move. Having acquired another piece of coal, I glanced at him. He was still there, staring at me. I kept mining before shooting another glance at him. His gaze was firm on my back. A little creeped out, I got another couple pieces of coal before I couldn't resist looking at him again. He seemed to be observing me with great interest, or perhaps it was disdain. Maybe he was studying me; perhaps to him I was some intriguing new species that he would put in an encyclopaedia. I had thirteen pieces of coal and there was still more to go, so I harvested them too, leaving me with nineteen pieces; quite a respectable hoard. I turned around to find the Professor still staring at me. "Right, I've got a whole heap of coal," I told him, "So now let's go back to the surface and make some torches, eh?" He just stood there, so I looked at how many cobblestone blocks I had; three. I quickly grabbed two more for a stone sword and turned to look at Professor Gregory again. "After you," I offered, gesturing to the stairs. He didn't move and I frowned. "Okay, then," I resolved, trying to push him up to the surface. Gregory just looked at me. Trying a different approach, I squeezed past him and leapt up the stairs. On the surface now, I looked back down into the mine. The Professor hadn't moved and was still staring thoughtfully at where the coal had once been. I shrugged and headed back to my house where I crafted a stone sword and pick.

I went back outside again and noticed a huge herd of about ten pigs wandering around on top of a small hill. A perfect source of food! I dashed over to them and went on a mad killing spree until each and every one of them had been brutally slaughtered. By the time they were all dead, I had a mere seven pieces of pork. These villagers really needed to fatten their pigs, I thought. On another, steeper hill to my left was a small herd of cows. Resolving that armour would be a good idea, I went over and killed a couple before it started to get dark. Panicking, I noticed a flash of white over the hill and peered over its edge; sheep! I killed three, each of which yielded its wool, and headed back into Ir Qas. The sun was low on the horizon now, but the lights of the church were a glowing beacon in the growing twilight. I found my house again and went inside, hearing the creaking of doors and the shuffling of feet as the rest of the villagers hid in their houses. I crafted myself a bed out of the birch wood and turned around, wondering if I'd be sharing a room with anyone tonight. The house was empty except for me; good.

I placed my new bed down against one of the walls, pillow facing away from the door. It looked terrible, so I picked it up again and replaced it so that it was facing the other way. Much better. I peered out through the glass-paned window and saw that the sun was creeping slowly beneath the earth, turning the sky a beautiful orange. It was time to sleep.

I leapt into the bed and pulled the covers over myself, relishing their warmth.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Dang. There goes my gold ore..._


	10. Day Two: Chickens and DeathPits

**A/N: I made another chapter. Yippee! Sort of yippee, anyway; I think Phil's acting up again. Darn. But I have defeated you, Phil! *holds pathetic stone sword up triumphantly* It seems I write better when I'm half-asleep. What do you know?**

I walked out of the house and into the soft light of dawn, breathing in the delicious scents of earth of trees and the burning undead. My stomach growled; I had only three units of hunger left. Now would be a good time to make a furnace. Pick in hand, I began to stroll down the village street, looking out for the entrance to my mine. As I passed the fields, I mused that I should put some fences around them sometime. Oh, there it was; I dashed over to it and headed down the steps. Professor Gregory had had the sense to go stay in a house for the night, thank goodness. It was awfully dark down here, however, and I didn't want monsters spawning this close to the village. I crafted myself four torches out of the one stick I had left and placed two of them as I dug some more steps down into the earth. Soon I had thirty blocks of cobblestone in my inventory and I headed back to my house to make a furnace. As I placed my newest creation down on the other side of the room from my bed, I decided that I should probably expand the house a little. Three by three may have been enough space for testificates, but I liked something a little less claustrophobic.

I went outside to the creaking of doors; Professor Gregory barely spared me a glance as he trotted into view and entered the house across the street, where he stared at the wall until the door closed and I couldn't see him anymore. Testificates are weird.

I moved around the back of the house, noting the build of it; each corner was a pillar of cobblestone, which also made up the floor. The walls between were wood and had a single window in each of them.

Using the cobblestone I had just mined, I made a large protrusion of it from the back of the house, three wide and four long. I looked in my inventory; I had only one block of oak planks left, and I wanted to be consistent. I'd need to go cut down an oak or two, then. The base complete, I looked around for the forest. There was a swamp to my left now and I could see the tops of trees over a low rise, a chunk or two away. I tried to set off at a sprint towards them, but ended up tripping over my own feet and falling flat on my face. I groaned my annoyance as I pushed myself up again; I had less than three units of hunger left, so there was no way I could run.

_There's the goldfish memory kicking in again. You forgot to eat, dimwit!_

Ah, right, I did. I went back inside and stuck my seven pieces of pork in the furnace. The coal I inserted began to cook them in the strange way it does, and I turned around at the sound of a door opening.

Professor Gregory peered at me from his position on top of the crafting table.

"Uh... hi, Professor..." I said, a little scared. He continued to stare at me. "How's your day?" I asked brightly. He stared. "I... guess that's good..." I replied hesitantly. He stared. I stared. He stared. I stared. I broke the silence by wondering aloud, "I wonder if the pork's done," and inching towards the furnace. His emerald gaze followed me. Feeling the heat of the flames tickling my shins, I reached into the furnace and pulled out a single piece of cooked pork, my eyes not leaving his. "Pork," I said by way of explanation, holding it up to show the Professor. His gaze still hadn't left mine. I ate the pork and he stared at me, intrigued. I think. I took another piece of pork from the furnace and chewed it carefully as the Professor watched. When I had finished, my hunger bar was full. He must have been writing a very in-depth book, so great was his interest in me. Or maybe he just lived to be creepy. I held his gaze for another few seconds- he seemed to be raising an eyebrow- before I gave up and headed outside, closing the door behind me. Professor Gregory seemed quite comfortable on my crafting table, so I shrugged and left him in there.

_How about you follow Miss Archer's suggestion and get yourself a pet?_

It was a good idea.

_I know. That's why I suggested it. If I didn't have any, we'd all be doomed._

I went and grabbed a piece of wheat from the nearest field before heading over to the patch of plains behind my house, having spotted various animals over there. I spotted a chicken, two cows, some sheep and a pig. Wheat in my hand, I headed over to the small herd and before I knew it I had a chicken at my feet. I crouched to its level, making a weird clicking noise with my lips and holding out the golden plant. I began backing away from my newfound feathered friend, wheat still extended.

_Have you any idea how stupid you look?_

No. No I do not. I led the chicken around a low rise and down into a dip, around a little ridge and we were almost at my house. "Hold on," I realised, looking at the chicken as though I had just split an atom, "Chickens as pets are _so _cliché!" I put away the wheat and whipped out my sword, beheading the bird with one swipe of my sword and stowing its meat away in my backpack.

_That... was... horrifying. How could you be so cold-hearted?_

"With great ease," I said aloud, absently waving the smoke out of the way.

_Any testificates watching would think you were crazy for talking to thin air. They would be correct._

I turned around to face the far-off forest and set out for it at an easy lope. Soon I was there and cut down two trees, awarding me with sixteen pieces of wood. I noticed that this forest was littered with caves; there were two, no, three, perhaps even four visible from here! Peering over the edge of a particularly horrible death-pit, I saw some peachy-coloured substance on the other side of it; iron! How perfect! I leaned further to get a closer look and windmilled my arms to stop myself from falling in, finally managing to extract myself from the edge. Breathing heavily, I took some dirt out of my inventory and decided to make a staircase to the iron. I dropped into the pit a little way and carefully made some dirt stairs from there. The cave whined its protest, sending a shiver down my spine, but I reached the iron and began to mine it. The first block burst and dropped further into the pit before I could grab it; I gulped as it disappeared into the depths. There was a mine shaft down there; I could make out wooden supports and spiderwebs. I had the game set on normal difficulty now, so would spider bites be poisonous? I didn't really want to find out. I grabbed another eight blocks without much difficulty, but there were still more. How would I be able to reach them, though, if they would just drop into space? Would I have to descend into the depths of the death-pit?

I sprung from the dirt platform I was standing on to a nearby ledge, placing more dirt underneath the iron block I hadn't yet mined and retrieving the ore. I was quite proud of myself for thinking of it. But there was still the block that had fallen earlier... it couldn't be too hard to retrieve, could it? I sneaked to the edge and peered into the pit; below the supports of the mine shaft was only blackness. _Void _blackness, I wondered? I was already deep enough for iron...

A little above the mine shaft and below where I stood, however, a cave system branched off in opposite direction, disappearing into the dark. I only had two torches, but I could easily make some more out of birch sticks. I entered my inventory and made some sticks, but all my coal was gone! Oh, that was right; I had been using it to cook. I hoped the Professor hadn't stolen anything. Well, there goes any thought of exploring the cave today. I'd just place a marker at the top and come back tomorrow.

When I reached the surface, I was glad that I had chosen now to stop; dusk was encroaching. I picked up an apple that had most likely fallen from the two trees I had chopped down and placed a couple of saplings before making a mad dash across the grass and into Ir Qas. I arrived just in time to see Professor Gregory opening the door to my house and going inside. I entered too, shutting the door behind me and turning to face him with a sigh. He was standing on my bed. "Look, Professor," I said reasonably, "This has got to stop. I like you, don't get me wrong, but I also like a bit of personal space, which you don't seem to have a concept of. I'd appreciate it if you just went and stayed somewhere else for the night." I opened the door and gestured for him to leave. He just stared at me and I sighed again. "Well, I guess you're asking for it, then," and I grabbed his shoulders and, with some difficulty, forced him out the door and slammed it shut behind him. I was quite relieved when he headed off down the road, presumably to stay at a friend's house.

_Awww, that's cute. I think he has a thing for you, y'know. I bet he's trying to ask you out in a kind of creepy, stalker-y kind of way._

Well, he can dream on. Now that he was gone, I thought it safe to leap into bed and slowly, oh so slowly, my eyes drifted shut.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Gregory says "Goodnight!"_

I shuddered and fell asleep.


	11. Day Three: Horrible Evil Venomous Bugs

**A/N: Anyone heard of the YouTuber 'IntheLittleWood'? If you love the Yogscast, you'll love him. He sounds a little like a younger Simon and is doing videos of various games including Minecraft. He's also utterly hilarious, so thank you to iPinkNinja for introducing me to him. In other (and considerably more random) news, I have eaten at least two apples now that taste like alcohol. I'm not kidding. Don't worry; I didn't get drunk or anything from them. **

I jumped out of bed with a spring in my step; I'd start renovations on my house today. Sticking the iron ore in the furnace and taking out the pork that was inside, I went out the door and out the back of the house to start work.

Soon the cobblestone platform had wooden walls and stone corners. Following a few escapades with fences and glass, the place had a roof and I moved my bed and crafting table to the back of the house and the ladder between them. I still had to get logs for the roof's border and make some more fences, so I'd do that now.

_Stop. I have something to tell you._

Okay...

_I need a name._

Uh huh...

_And GrygrFlzr was gracious enough to suggest a few._

And...?

_AND my name is Mélodieux._

...I'm guessing that's French?

_Oui, madamemoiselle._

Oh. Does this mean I can imagine you with a French accent?

_NOT ON YOUR LIFE._

Why not? French accents are awesome!

_Oh, yes, _you _might think that._

Are you being racist?

_Maybe._

So you're pretty much a jerk to everyone?

_I suppose so._

I sighed and decided to continue work on my house. I went outside and examined the roof before heading off towards the forest to collect some logs, which I got from the swamp instead, the first tree being quite a shock. I chopped the bottom block to pieces and expected the rest to drop down and zip into my backpack with a little _pop. _They didn't, much to my puzzlement. It was then that I remembered that I didn't have the timber mod installed.

_You've been watching too much Kingdom of the Saplings._

I know, I know. Eventually I cut down three swamp trees and found a pumpkin patch which I collected another trio from, this time of pumpkins, musing that I could make snow golems if I found snow. Soon I collected and planted a great multitude of saplings and even two apples. I swung my bag off my shoulders and rummaged in it to see how many logs I had acquired; twenty-four. Hopefully that would be enough. I took the logs out of my bag and dashed back to Ir Qas, installing this latest decoration on my roof and having thirteen of them left over. It seemed I was having a lucky streak this morning; maybe this would be enough for all the fences? I went inside and crafted six fences from the logs; I was two short though, I found when I had gone all the way outside and used a four-stack of dirt to get up onto my roof, completely forgetting about the ladder I had _just _placed. I made some more fences and my roof was complete.

The house, however, I found when I went inside, was not yet finished. I still needed glass for windows; how did one make panes? I refused to consult the wiki until I'd tried to figure it out, but before I did that I'd need to actually find some sand. I went outside and surveyed the terrain before noticing the sandy banks of the swamp's water pools; perfect! A stone shovel would come in handy for this, so I darted inside and crafted myself one before heading in the direction of the orange-turning horizon and grabbing some sand. I stiffened on the grass, though, for I heard a skeleton rattle menacingly. The hostile mob was nowhere around me, so I grabbed myself thirty-four blocks of sand and sprinted back into the village in the frighteningly growing dusk. The moon was just poking itself over the land in the east when I ducked in the door and slammed it behind me, breathing heavily from my run. Well, this had been a short day. I had barely got anything done! It wasn't fair on my readers to give them such a short chapter, so I decided to go for another day. I waited for the cheer, but it didn't come.

_Unsurprising. It's not like anyone likes you, anyway._

Yeesh. That's harsh.

_It's true._

I rolled my eyes at her and leapt out of bed; it was morning now. The sounds of opening doors came from all around me as the citizens of Ir Qas emerged from their houses. I went over to my furnace; there were nine iron ingots in there! **"ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Acquire Hardware,'"** a booming voice proclaimed as I took out the metal. I decided that his name would be Triston, partly because it means 'the loud one' and partly because it's an awesome name.

"Thanks, Triston," I told him.

"**Much obliged,"** he replied, still in his deep voice. I put the glass on to cook and wondered what I'd do until it was done. A chest would be a good idea, I thought, so I got some planks out of my inventory and made one, only getting a little nostalgic. I placed it under a window and put all the stuff I didn't need in it before turning back to my furnace; the fourth block of glass had just finished cooking, so I took the clear quartet and stuck them on the crafting table in a square, surmising that this might make a glass pane. It didn't.

_Nice try, imbecile._

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET!"**

"Really?" I asked, excited.

"**No. But that's about the only thing I get to say, so I try to say it as often as possible." **

"Oh," that rather put a damper on my good spirits.

_You look like a kicked puppy. It's hilarious._

I checked the furnace; two more pieces of glass were ready. There was still not enough to fill up the crafting grid, so I made myself another ladder and placed it at the top of the existing ones, making it easier to get up. I'd need to make a trapdoor for this, I mused. Upon going back inside, I collected another few pieces of glass and brought my total up to ten. I put them on the crafting grid, but they refused to make a glass pane. Darn.

"Any idea how to make a glass pane?" I said aloud.

_No._

"**Nope!" **

I sighed. I would have to consult the wiki after all. After doing so, I found that I had it completely wrong; six glass blocks made sixteen panes! I crafted the material and made a couple more windows before expanding both those and the already existing ones to two blocks wide. It afforded me with a much better view, but I mused that I'd quite like a texture pack. It would make the game look a whole lot prettier... but most of them either weren't for 1.2.5 or made the mobs look horrible.

_Indeed. Creepers are bad enough without having a screwed-up face as well._

I collected a few more pieces of glass, stowing them away in my chest and deciding that now would be a good time to go mining. I headed out of the house and onto the plains, down the steps and into a small staircase I was beginning to hollow out. I turned it from two high to three high, tired of bumping my head on each step, before continuing downwards.

Through stone, more stone and a bit of gravel... but then I busted away a floor block and all the items dropped a few levels. I was looking down at a dirt platform and the cave system that twisted away into the dark to either side of it.

_A cave! Onwards, Mellifluousness! _

I only have two torches.

_In the dark, then!_

My sword is nearly broken.

_Well, it's about time you died!_

I took an unwitting step forward and fell through the small hole, landing on my face in the dirt with a slight "Oof!" Upon leaping to my feet, sword in hand, and looking around, I surmised that there were no monsters about. That couldn't last, though. I placed a torch on the opposite wall and began to inch towards the branch on my right before I froze at footstep noises; they were coming closer to me.

Tap-tap-tap tap crunch, crunch OH NO OH NO! I barely had time to draw my sword as a blurry brown shape dashed past me, so I hit at it with whatever was in my hand; ladders, actually. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw that it was only a testificate, but my heart was still fluttering wildly.

_Oh, that was hilarious!_

Quiet, you. The testificate had gone wandering off down the right-hand tunnel, but quickly came back between the wall and a pillar of gravel, heading to the left where he leapt up onto a single-block stone platform, spun around a few times and went right again. He soon returned and went away again, returned and went away.

I decided his name was Loony.

Perhaps it was getting dark outside and he was trying to get to the surface? I made a cobblestone staircase for him, but he ignored it and continued on his circuit. Weird. There was a vein of coal beside me though, so I mined away at it and made myself twelve more torches.

_So much for your excuses._

Ignoring her, I got rid of some stone in the hope of finding more coal, and voila! There it was. I emerged from this latest hole and placed a torch on the wall of the right tunnel; it was a dead end of only dirt. Loony seemed incredibly interested in a block-wide alcove in the back of it, so I cheekily took out a couple of dirt blocks and boxed him in there, laughing at his frantic footsteps as he tried to escape. I'm not that mean, though, so I let him out again. He looked at me disdainfully.

I began exploring the left-hand tunnel and found a lot more coal there, along with that greatest of treasures, iron! Not quite the greatest, really, but one of the best I've ever found. Only three diamonds have ever graced my inventory with their presence; just enough for a pick. I soon found that this tunnel reached up to the surface, where rays of sunlight poked through gaps between grassy bridges and warmed the stone. The tunnel split in a Y shape here; the left branch led to lava and a mine shaft, the right into darkness. A mine shaft, eh? I could make out cobwebs, and that meant cave spiders.

_Go on. If you're not too much of a coward, that is._

Oh, I dunno. I'm feeling pretty cowardly today...

_Great treasures may be found in mine shafts..._

Oh. I'm in. You sound like something out of an RPG, by the way.

_This pretty much is an RPG, so I fit right in._

I inched down the natural staircase toward the lava-fall, a zombie's moans ringing in my ears and making me tense up each time they sounded. At one point I looked back to check that no monsters were approaching and saw a piece of rotten flesh bobbing gently up and down on a sun-struck ledge. Crap. Soon I reached the foot of the stairs where they fell into oblivion, noting that the lava-fall seemed to cut the mine shaft in half. I stood against the left wall, and another tunnel seemed to go backwards from here, just below where I stood. Maybe I could make a staircase to there- OH MY GOSH A ZOMBIE! I leapt back up the stairs as the undead man turned around again and walked back up the mine shaft. What was that all about? I went to place a block under the one I was standing on so I could make a staircase. Unfortunately, I was holding torches, and the torch went under the overhang and out of reach.

_Well done._

Why, thank you. I made some effort to retrieve it but it was rather uncooperative, so I used another method to get down and get it, replacing it on the left wall where it would be more useful. The cave did indeed wind its way backwards from here; I could just make out a waterfall in the dim distance. _Clink! _There was a skeleton right in front of me, standing on a block-wide ledge at the foot of more natural steps, where I could only see its legs. Great. Maybe the mine shaft would be safer...

_Do it, coward._

I took a step forward, then another and another. It turned to face me, but didn't fire, knowing it couldn't hit me through solid rock. I bent my knees and took a mighty leap, swinging my sword and completely missing the skeleton. I hit the block above its legs, though, so I knew I could reach it. I tried again and this time I hit, causing it to give a rattle of protest. I hit it again and again and again and it died but wait what the heck OH MY GOSH OW! I landed face-first (again) on gravel and thought I heard something snap; I had fallen into the cave beyond! Oh, no... it was _very _dark in here. Just in front of me the waterfall fell, running off towards the right. There seemed to be some form of light down there; lava perhaps? Having got to my feet, I now stood on a small staircase of gravel, listening to a zombie moan and a spider chitter.

_Nice work. You've got yourself into a right mess here._

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET!"**

Yeah, right. I looked around hesitantly as a spider cried again. I was so dead... where to go now? To my left was a wooden platform complete with cobwebs and a luminescent experience orb drifting slightly above the ground. Which way to go? Mine shafts held treasure, but light held safety...

Treasure it is then.

I leapt forward into the water, which then pushed me back onto gravel. Flinching at the noise I made, I jumped back to where I had stood before, the spider noises louder and more frequent... it was coming from above me now...

Red eyes sped towards me.

_You're dead._

The spider hit me like the ground after a twenty-block drop, latching onto me with dagger-like claws and sinking its fangs into my shoulder. I threw the beast off with the tip of my sword and it went flying with a cry of pain, but it was too late; wicked claws ripped me apart from the inside and my health bar turned yellow-green.

"**You've been poisoned!"**

No bloody kidding, I thought, hacking the arachnid to pieces. Finally it was dead, but I could do no more than stand there and cry out in pain as the poison wore away at my health. Wait; food! I had to have some! I forced myself to rummage in my bag until I pulled out five pork chops as the pain went away. I ate one, breathing heavily again, and brought my hunger up to full, beginning to regenerate hearts. Lesson learned: cave spiders are poisonous.

_Actually, they're venomous. Poison must be ingested, but venom is- _

I know, I know and I don't freaking care! Whatever it is, it's deadly and I don't like it! I had to find the cave spider spawner; that would fix the problem. I just sat there like an idiot though, listening to the spider noises and occasionally looking left when I heard a zombie moan. I didn't want to move lest they spot me again. Suddenly fire ripped through my system again and I looked down to see a little blue blob at my feet; another spider! I killed it as the poison-

_Venom-_

-WHATEVER wore off and collected the two pieces of string it dropped. Right, I had to move; I couldn't just sit here like an idiot forever!

_Oh, I dunno. You do it quite well._

Shut up. I looked to the wall behind me; it was about three, maybe four blocks high. Oh, great. The spiders were still screaming, but I didn't have the nerve to tell them to shut up. Here we go... I took a bunch of cobblestone blocks from my inventory and began to build a tower upwards. A cave spider rushed to stop me, but I killed it with one swipe of my sword and soon reached the top, leaping back into the tunnel and building a cobblestone wall to keep the spiders in. Four blocks high would do. Once it was finished, I crossed my arms and poked my tongue out at my eight-legged foes. Take that, you little buh... bugs. Horrible, evil little _venomous _bugs. Take that. So there.

Now that I was more focused on my surroundings, I noticed rain, a typical thunderous Minecraft monsoon. It was a dull roar in my ears, intensifying as I made my way back down the tunnel. Maybe this was enough for today. Soon I was at the lava-fall and had my sword out as a zombie moaned. Good zombie... nice zombie... stay in your little cave, there's a good zombie... who's a friendly little zombie... I really hope it's you, because if it's not, I'm screwed... as I ascended the staircase and passed the grass-bridge pit, the rain grew to a more defined hiss, and again as I reached another pit. Okay, so left here... why was there another lava-fall? I don't remember passing any of those and that cave has no torches in it!

_You turned around, idiot._

Oh. Right. Whoops. I turned around again and headed back the way I thought I had come, soon reaching Loony's passage. He was still there, too, strange as he is. When I tried to go up the stairs, I discovered the reason he hadn't used them; a stone block was in the way. I mined it and turned back to see if Loony would come now, but he just went into the cave where the coal vein had been. "Okay, Loony," I said, "Whatever you want."

I went up the stairs. Soon I was at the steps to the surface, but there were two big problems.

One: it was raining. Monsters spawn in the rain.

Two: it was night. Monsters most _definitely _spawn in the night.

_Good luck with this one, fool._

Thanks, Mélodieux. I really appreciate the support.

_I'm always happy to give it._

Right, I thought. Here goes... I dashed out of the mine and sprinted into Ir Qas, drenched in an instant by the pouring rain. Down the street and into the house, quick open the door get in hurry! I slammed the door behind me and sighed in relief. Phew. The priest and a farmer were the house, surprisingly roomy after my renovations. "Hi," I said brightly. They just stared at me, hospitable as testificates will ever be. Gregory wasn't there for once; he had obviously taken what I had told him to heart. I decided the priest was Reverend Gaston and the farmer was Farmer Bob, because every farmer is named Bob. Except for pretty much all of them, but still. A zombie moaned outside and the Reverend and Bob looked worried. "It's okay, guys," I consoled them; "You've got Mellifluousness the Mighty in your village. Nothing can stop me!" I proclaimed, trying to lean on my sword and falling over sideways instead, nearly impaling myself on it. "I meant to do that," I lied, jumping to my feet again. The Reverend looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Or half of his monobrow raised, at least.

BAM! BAM! BAM-BAM!

"Who is it?" I called tentatively, knowing full well who (or what) it was. I darted to the door and wrenched it open and the zombie came in with outstretched arms. Not to hug someone, unfortunately. I sliced them off (but not before it hit me), followed by its head, and it vanished in a puff of smoke. I closed the door and turned to the testificates. "See? Nothing to worry about!"

_You're terrible. You know that, right?_

I sighed. I know. Deciding that now would be a good time to go to bed, I leapt under the covers and felt my eyes drift closed.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Shcee-oo!_

Oh, shut up.


	12. Day Four: Rest in Peace, Laws of Physics

**A/N: I almost got the most beautiful texture pack in the world. Almost. Y U SO EVIL, DOWNLOAD WEBSITE? It's not corrupted, I'm sure of it! IT'S TOO FREAKING BEAUTIFUL TO BE CORRUPTED! T_T**

**In other news, I think I broke our broadband cap, doo-dah, doo-dah... I think this because the internet is being uncooperative. For me, at least. Maybe it just doesn't like me. GASP; I have had an epiphany! Perhaps this is the reason behind the failed download? I think I'll have to wait 'till May to find out. :(**

**Also, fifty-five reviews! You guys are the best. :D**

**"Time to get up!"**

"ARGH!" I fell out of bed and onto the floor with a loud THUMP. "Triston!" I cried, "Why'd you do that?"

_Purely for my amusement, I assure you._

Oh, gee, thanks. I headed outside to the smell of mobs burning- I could see a trio of skeletons just outside the village, poor things- and a few experience orbs _tink-tink-tinked _their way under my skin. It was a peculiar feeling, but not unpleasant. What would I do today, I wondered?

_There's still that mine shaft..._

Horrible evil little venomous bugs. No thank you. Aha, that was it! I'd go find a forest and search for wolves! Those skeletons up there would come in handy... I took out my sword and sprinted towards them, yelling a battle cry as I approached the first one. It loosed an arrow in my direction as I tripped over my own feet (again, curse my clumsiness) and dodged the projectile. The dodging, as you may have figured out, was not intentional. I leapt to my feet again (at least I can do that quickly) and turned the skeleton's already fragile leg bones to dust with a swipe of my sword. The creature fell over and vanished in smoke and ash, whatever items it had dropped zooming into my backpack. I paid no attention to those, though, having sighted another skeleton panicking a little way off. Its vertebrae snapped under the force of my stone sword and it dropped a few bones. I searched for the other skeleton, but it was nowhere to be seen so I checked my bag; three arrows and two bones. A measly hoard. Hmm...

There were some interesting-looking mountains in the distance, great looming dragons' backs of stone and grass. The one on the left had a strange overhang, seemingly perfectly flat; I'd like to investigate. I set off across the plains at a sprint; there was a cow, wandering around innocently. I'd like some leather for armour, I thought, so I charged up to it and yelled a battle cry as I leapt into the air, bringing my sword down into its back majestically. The cow let out a cry of pain; I imagined the scene in slow motion as it fell over.

And then my sword snapped in half and I did a forward roll across the cow's back and onto the grass, somehow managing to end up on my face. I lay there for a moment, wondering simply _how _I had accomplished such a thing.

_It's simple, really. Failure is in your DNA. It's genetically coded into you. You can do nothing _but _fail, which gives me even more reason to mock you._

How uplifting. I feel really supported, Mélodieux. Self-confidence through the roof and all that.

_Good. It's nice to know that this is working._

I got to my feet with a groan of annoyance, finding that I had picked up a single piece of leather and three pieces of beef. The ratio was ridiculous. The broken hilt of my sword was in my hand, the blade lost somewhere amongst the tall grass. I tossed the hilt to the ground in disgust; I'd have to go all the way back to my house now and craft another one, wasting valuable time. Following putting stuff in my chest and my iron on to cook, falling down a few cliffs and going the wrong way, I was soon back to where I had been before. There was an incredible number of cows here; I brutally murdered a great number of them, ending up with seventeen pieces of leather. This mission was certainly not in vain, I thought! I was then that I realised my sword- my _brand new sword- _was in the orange! I had less than three hunger units, too, and my stomach was growling. Oh, great. Well, I had my pickaxe with me; I'd just mine some stone and build a furnace! Where the mountains met there was a small lake, fed by a waterfall coming out of the left mountain's side. Above that, I could make out coal; perfect! I swam over to it, bidding a squid good morning on the way, and realised I didn't need to mine stone as I already had a full stack of it. I jumped and placed it under me, making a tower until I reached the coal. I mined it all and even some stone to make the cave look more natural; I don't like desecrating the environment. Soon I was back on the ground and placed a crafting table (which I'd had the foresight to bring with me) at the foot of the mountain, making a ring of eight cobblestone blocks in the crafting grid. I took out the result and made to fling it Frisbee-style at the ground, but I missed completely and it ended up one block beyond- in the water.

_Nice try. Pick it up and try again._

I barely stifled a snigger. A furnace in the water; like that would work... but I stopped. What if...?

_It won't. You know it won't._

I took some coal out of my bag and placed my thirty-four pieces of steak on the grill.

_This is pointless. It won't-_

I stuck the coal underneath and it began to burn.

_-work. Oh, crap._

"YES, NOTCH!" I cried, throwing my head back and holding open palms to the sky, "YES!"

_Come ON!_

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Should Make Steam,'" **Triston declared.

"BOO-YAH!"

_No way! No freaking way!_

I broke into a victory dance and skipped back and forth across the block-wide lakeshore, chanting with glee, "It really works! It really works! Minecraft physics for the win!"

_No! That's impossible! What the heck!_

The furnace burned happily away, immersed in water one block deep. It pleased me to no end that this was possible. I dived into the water and took a perfectly-cooked piece of steak from the furnace before leaping up onto the shore again. I ate the meat, staring at the setting sun.

It was made all the more delicious by the fact that I knew the laws of physics and nature were running around in circles and screaming. I ate another, bringing my hunger bar up to full, before swimming around the corner and mining a great multitude of coal. When I got back, ten pieces of steak were done and the western sky was turning tangerine; time to go, I thought. I chopped up the crafting table and gathered the contents of the furnace and the block itself, bolting across the hills as azure turned to blue-grey. Blue-grey had become black when the lights of Ir Qas' chapel were in view and the stars danced and skipped across the sky as I dashed down the road and into my house, slamming the door behind me. Two farmers had paid a visit, and I could hear footsteps coming from outside... oh no... I leapt into bed and pulled the covers over myself for protection, feeling my eyes drifting closed.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Rest in peace, laws of physics. I'll miss you._

You go, Notch...


	13. Day Five: Looking Snazzy

**A/N: I spent most of the day trying to get a texture pack working. Does anyone here know how to fix buggy pumpkins? I'm using **_**Steelfeathers Enchanted**_ **or whatever it's called. It doesn't do anything to the mobs (or the armour, much to my annoyance) but it makes the terrain look a whole lot prettier.**

**As for how I write so fast... I've got a lightspeed keyboard. Duh. ;)**

_I swear, you spend all your time sleeping._

No I don't! I get up to many great things, thank-you-very-much! I leapt out of bed and glared at the ceiling before my eyes widened and I looked around in surprise. The bedsheets were purple, the walls a much darker colour, the window-panes clearer and the furnace looked more oven-y. The crafting table had received quite the makeover and the door was far prettier. The chest, too, was darker in colour, redder than it was before. I zipped up the ladder and stopped myself by holding onto the fences, mouth dropping open and eyes widening with delight. The landscape was darker and more realistic, the sun a shining white orb held in the grasp of the beautiful chapel. The wheat fields were gold, truly gold, the forest a deep green patch of lushness on the plains. It was beautiful, wondrous, a sight for sore eyes! I no longer regretted all the time I'd waited for a texture pack; this was worth it, altogether worth it! I went downstairs again and looked in the chest; the pumpkins sure were a mess of water and lava and fire, but that could be fixed. This was glorious!

I opened the door and took a deep breath of air that smelled so much fresher, crisper, stepping out onto the dark grey gravel and delighting in the improved textures. The crunch of my feet on the path seemed music to my ears.

_You really are overreacting._

I don't care! This is positively resplendent! I rather wandered along the street, aimlessly heading towards the wheat fields. Reverend Gaston stood on the border of one, arms crossed and purple robe billowing slightly in the faint breeze, staring off into the distance majestically as the sun rose behind him. I laughed and bid him good morning, turning the corner and admiring the texture of the wheat.

_I suppose it is rather pretty, isn't it? Creeper._

I knew you'd agree. Wait, wha- OH NO OH NO OH NO! I leapt backwards and tried to run as the creature hissed and swelled, but the explosion hit me in the back and catapulted me forwards. I looked back in shock at the pit in the path, water from the fields pouring into it and the Revered jumping in and out again, panicked. It seemed I hadn't gone to bed early enough last night...

_That's what you get for making physics cry. There, there, honey, it's alright..._

Oh, yeah. You personify a force of nature and yet you have no sympathy for me when I get BLOWN UP.

_It's what I'm good at._

I went over to the hole where the path had once been and assessed the damage; annoying, but not too bad. Following a few escapades with water, logs and ever-infuriating gravel, the fields were repaired and a big bunch of dirt sat where the path had once been. I could fix that later, once I had some gravel. I went and crafted myself a hoe (**"ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Time to Farm!'"**) and tilled the soil before replanting some wheat. I had a few seeds and some bundles of wheat left over; those could be used later.

_Well, I'm glad that little episode's over. Go make yourself some armour, weakling, before you get ripped to shreds by something else._

It was a good idea, minus the 'weakling' and 'getting ripped to shreds' parts. I headed back to my house and put the single seed I had left in the chest, noticing that I had three bundles of wheat; enough for a loaf of bread! I went over to the crafting table; the grid was so strange now, a noughts-and-crosses sketch of two pairs of intersecting parallel lines. I loved it. I placed the pieces of wheat on the grid and retrieved the finished product from the results square.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Bake Bread,'"**

"Thanks, Triston," I said happily, sticking the loaf in my backpack for later use. I took out the leather and stuck it on the crafting grid in the shape of a mushroom cup; it welded itself into a cap. I made a pair of pants and some boots, too, leaving me with a single piece of leather. Seven more and I could make a shirt, but that would have to wait. I put the cap onto my head and pulled on the pants before slipping my feet into the boots. They all fit perfectly and I admired my handiwork in the inventory screen's mirror-like thing.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET!" **Triston proclaimed. **"'Looking Snazzy,'" **

I nodded my approval before eating my newly-baked loaf of bread, replenishing the one unit of hunger I was missing. It tasted wonderful, possibly even more so because of the wonderful new world I was in. Even my hunger bar was different, the chicken drumsticks replaced with green apples. This was simply wondrous; I was so glad I had thought to get a texture pack. I took some iron ingots out of the oven and replaced them with beef before going outside to contemplate my next move.

_Get yourself some proper tools, idiot. You have twenty-seven iron ingots total in there and a stone sword in your hand!_

Oh. I hadn't thought of that. I went inside and made myself a sword, then a pick, then an axe. I hefted the shining tools in my hands, eyes wide with delight and what may or may not have been malice. An enormous grin graced my face. This was perfect; I loved this. I went outside and swaggered down the street, sword in hand and clad in my leather armour, feeling on top of the world.

_It's dusk, you know. You also look incredibly stupid._

Dusk? I ignored the last bit, looking to the sky fearfully. Indeed it was already blue-grey; time to go to bed. I went back inside, a couple of farmers beating me to it, and went over to my bed. Would it let me sleep?

Yes. Yes it would.

Goodnight, Minecraft...

_Goodnight._


	14. Day Six: A Bit of a Cliffhanger

**A/N: Y'know how I gave you guys two chapters in one day? Well, since it was my birthday (I'd only just remembered), I started on a third! *Blows on miscellaneous device that goes "ploot"* Unfortunately, I didn't finish it, so you get it today instead.**

**You want a screenshot? I GIVE you a screenshot! Go to "i (dot) Imgur (dot) com/XuoAT (dot) png" to see, without spaces and bla de bla. You know the drill. Enjoy the screenshot. I've got an account there now (imaginatively titled "TWIWWF") so I'll probably post more pictures, including stuff of the town if you want. ;)**

I leapt out of bed with a spring in my step, joyous because the wondrous chernobylvictim302 had helped me fix the issue of buggy pumpkins and diamond armour. Of course, there was no change to the world directly around me, but _Steelfeathers Enchanted _felt all the more enchanting just because I knew the errors had been fixed. I went outside aimlessly and did a little dance in the street before heading right without any clear destination in mind. Soon I was out onto the plains where I couldn't resist dancing again, skipping back and forth on the edge of a pond and delighting in the beauty of the Minecraft morning. I hoped dearly that I wouldn't get over this. Iron sword in hand and clad in protective leather, I felt rather more confident about heading back to the caves and getting some more ores. I'd love to see their textures, too. I turned around and headed back towards my mine, breaking into a sprint and letting out a little laugh of pleasure. I loved this. Suddenly I discovered that I was beyond the town's borders; I had totally missed the entrance to the mine.

_You must be completely blind._

I turned around, frowning, and made my way back at a far slower pace. Ah, there it was; I headed down the steps and into the torchlight, marvelling at the truly smooth stone. Everything seemed so much more _real. _I moved quickly down the steps when a dark thing to my right caught my eye; gravel! I could use this to repair the street! I harvested fourteen pieces of it and dashed back to the surface, where I found the broken path and repaired it.

_Well, that looks better. On to murdering things._

Cheery.

_I try. Let's go kill us some horrible evil little venomous bugs, eh?_

No! Not those again!

_Triston will give you an achievement, won't you, Triston?_

"**I will? Oh, uh, I will!"**

_Yes. You will._

I rolled my eyes. Fine. Back down the stairs and into the caves, down Loony's Passage (as I had come to think of it) and past the grass-bridged pit, to the lava-fall (a deeper maroon thanks to the texture pack) that illuminated everything faintly red and to the end of the tunnel where the cave spiders were. Here goes... I mined away two cobblestone blocks and then a staircase down to the water. I placed a torch on the wall; already those horrendous arthropods were piled up trying to get at me, bodies jet-black and eyes glowing red. Their AI eventually guided the around the mine shaft's supports and towards me; I flailed at them with my new iron sword and stained the waterfall greenish-black for a moment with their insides and death-dust. Ew.

_This is no time to be getting squeamish, fool. Go bust that spawner._

The string that the spiders dropped was washed away by the current, but I didn't care about that so much; the fires of the spawner stood out clearly in the dark. Oh, gosh... I dashed through the water, droplets flying everywhere, and machete-sliced some cobwebs out of the way. I slammed a torch down on the floor in a clear spot and whipped out my pickaxe, wincing at the deafening _clang, clang, clang, _as I brought it down on the alien material that made up the bars of the cave spider spawner. In the texture pack it was a forbidding cage with silver bars and a brownish top, the fires inside grinning at me evilly as they flickered, threatening the creation of another coal-dark beast. The tongues of flame gave no empty threats, though, for a cave spider poofed into existence that moment and stared at me for a second as though contemplating how I would taste.

_Charming things, aren't they?_

I stared at for a moment, horrified, right arm still hacking at the spawner rhythmically. I had mere seconds before the creature leapt; _! _CLANG! The cage burst into a thousand silver shards and the arachnid leapt, managing to get its venomous fangs into my neck before I could throw it off and run it through, guts and then death-dust flying everywhere. _Ew._

_Squeamish little girly-girl._

I just slaughtered a nest full of spiders! I am _not _squeamish!

_I'd call you not-squeamish if you hadn't said "ew"._

Oh, come on! Can't you at least give me a little- hey, I'm not poisoned anymore...

_You're welcome._

You did that deliberately to take my mind off of it? That's so sweet, Mélodieux!

_No. That was just a fortunate side-effect of my taunting._

Oh. Y'know, I kind of hoped that-

_There's another spawner._

NO FREAKING WAY. Where is it? I sliced some more cobwebs out of the way – the following hallway was choked with the things – and looked down a passageway to the left. There were the cage's flames, leaping and dancing in the dark to show off their brilliance. Oh, great. I swung my sword around randomly to get rid of the cobwebs, managing some pretty skilful tricks if I do say so myself.

_Of course, if anyone else had their say on the matter..._

Quiet, you. Soon I neared the spawner and was greeted with the sight of another cave spider's red eyes rushing towards me, uninhibited by all the sticky matter in the air. I yelped in surprise and swung my sword, but it got a hit or two in before I killed it. This was just _wonderful. _I was closer to the spawner now and whipped out my pickaxe, planning on smashing it to smithereens, when suddenly it seemed three cave spiders sprung into existence and pounced on me, hanging on with dagger-like claws and trying their best to rip me to shreds...

"**YOU DIED."**

WHAT. Triston, how could you? I was floating in the void now, staring at a red-tinged view of a bunch of cave spiders that appeared to be eating me. WHAT. I had died. Again. Seriously. Well and truly kicked the bucket, gone sleeping with the fishes, was pushing up daisies, done whatever other euphemism for dying one can think of.

_Well. That was pretty spectacular. Hurry up, now; all your things will disappear in about eight minutes or whatever it was._

I sighed. "Respawn me, please, Triston," I asked aloud, voice echoing strangely amongst the nothingness below the world.

"**Respawning now," **he informed me.

I woke up. My head was being attacked by some jerk with an electric drill and there was a ringing in my ears, then the feelings were gone as my health returned to full.

All that was left was the silence of the void.

"Hello?" I said aloud. At least, I thought I did; I couldn't even hear the sound of my own voice. "Crap," I added, not that I could hear it. I shook my head and looked out the window; the sky was deep indigo and monsters roamed the grass, their calls and cries falling on my deaf ears. My hands and backpack were empty and I knew I'd lost my armour, too; eight minutes to retrieve my items or they'd be lost forever. Great. My hearing probably wouldn't come back that quickly, either; I fiddled with the volume control on my computer, but that worked perfectly and the one in-game made no difference despite the fact that it was on one hundred per cent. How far into the night was it? There was no way I'd have time to get my things come morning; I was doomed.

_Stop being so depressing. You still have the equipment for a sword; make one and get down there! There's no time to lose!_

I went outside to check the time; it wasn't even past midnight. There would be no time to get the contents of my bag in the morning. I'd have to go now. Back downstairs, I nearly broke the clasp on the chest in my haste to open it, flipping the lid back in a rush. A stone sword that looked more like a knife caught my eye and I ripped it out with fervour. There were no iron ingots in there, though, and I knew I still had a great many of them; even more incentive to return to the underground and reclaim my possessions.

_Onwards and here's to hoping you don't die again!_

Herrrrre! BAM! My hearing made a triumphant return in a blaze of glory or something along those lines, revealing to me a zombie growling as it knocked charitably on someone's door, hoping to grace them with an early Christmas carol or maybe a free vacuum cleaner.

_In your dreams._

Yeah, I know, I thought with a sigh. It was nice to dream; at least I could hear now. Sound couldn't have returned to me at a more inopportune or bloody _terrifying _time, however. I supposed that, as guardian of Ir Qas, I'd have to save the testificates under attack. Darn.

_So much for not dying again._

SHUT. UP. I took a deep breath and rammed the door open before I could think, frantically trying and failing to close it behind me. Eventually I just gave up and whipped around, conveniently to the left and in the direction of the house that was being attacked. I charged with a noisy battle cry, but the two zombies that were trying to break down the door barely noticed me as I hacked at their backs, focused as they were on the easy prey inside the house. They weren't dying quickly enough, though, and I was running out of time so I left them as one figured out how to turn the handle and politely closed the door behind him. I killed the other (it had dropped an iron helmet, score!) and dashed off the street and onto the grass, dodging an arrow and panicked out of my mind. A spider seemed to yell my name as it began to pursue me; I skirted a creeper, but another one and a group of skeletons conversed up ahead next to a wheat field. The spider was on my tail, but I backed up and found myself falling down a hole. Wait, a hole? I turned to the left, where stairs led downwards; I had found my mine! I scuttled down the steps and ran the wrong way a few times in my haste, but finally I was in Loony's passage and dashing down there towards the grass-bridged pit. Okay, stop here and put your helmet on... I did so but _fwiit-thuk! _An arrow barely missed me, hitting the stone block behind me. I yelped in surprise and turned around; a skeleton was staring at me with empty eye sockets, grinning its deathly grin. I nearly swore with frustration and tenseness, charging it and taking an arrow to the shoulder before killing it with a few swipes of my stone sword. Perfect; I collected the two bones it dropped before skirting the moonlit grass-bridged hollow and leaping down the stairs towards the lava-fall; both these places would need better names, I decided, but that would have to wait. Perhaps my loyal reviewers would be creative and suggest some-?

_GET YOUR BLOCKY BUTT INTO THAT CAVE RIGHT NOW, GIRL!_

Ah! Right! Yes! I jumped down the cobblestone stairs and down what was spontaneously the Spider's Way, across the waterfall beyond and there was a dark pit, on the other side of which the mine shaft continued. I could have sworn this hadn't been here before.

"Brrd-rrd," an enderman said.

Shcee-ee! At a spider's cry my jaw dropped open and anger flared within me.

"AS THOUGH I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS RIGHT NOW! BUZZ THE NETHER OFF, YOU HORRIBLE CREATURES!"

_Oh my goodness. Temper, temper._

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Absolutely Terrifying,'"**

"YOU BET I AM!" I screamed again as though my voice was on caps lock before shaking my head as though to clear it. Now was no time to be getting distracted by fury. I backed off a little, preparing to take a run-up and sprint-jump across the gap between the mine shaft and where I stood now.

_Go._

I broke into a sprint and soared over the chasm, preparing for a hard landing on the wood...

My head hit a support in the way and I stopped in mid-air slapstick style before plummeting into the pit.

I may or may not have sworn.

**TO BE CONTINUED!**


	15. Day Seven: Retrieval Squad

**A/N: Guess what, guys? I'm back in school! Happy Term Two, everybody! And guess what that means? MORE IRREGULAR UPDATES! YAAAY! Sorry I took so long, but I was also a little worried about how I'm going to do this. I don't want to lose my stuff! T_T Thanks to Pignitus (not that he reads this) for a little motivation. **

It was dark down here.

I stood on dirt; water trickled away to the right a block or so in front of me. That was about all I could see.

A spider squealed.

It was dark down here.

_Well... how about a status check? Your inventory: two bones, a pathetic stone sword and an iron helmet. Your location: the bottom of a dark pit full of monsters. Your status: doomed._

Always so full of moral support, aren't you, I thought bitterly. It's _your _fault that I'm stuck down here. If you hadn't wanted me to go spawner-bashing in the first place, none of this would have happened! I was afraid to raise my gaze from the ground lest some monster be alerted to my presence. I had no tools with which to mine stone, no building materials in my possession and yet quite a few blocks to climb. I had five minutes to retrieve my items. This was not going to end well. I looked around; there were two waterfalls, one to the left and the other to right. The one on the right had another tunnel branching off behind it along with a lava fall. The one to the left was illuminated, but I couldn't tell what by. Most likely more bloody molten rock. Behind me was the mine shaft, perhaps three or four blocks up and nowhere near the waterfalls.

_Your status: doomed._

Right... there was dirt below my feet. There was a start. I grabbed about six or seven blocks of it and built myself a tower upwards, enderman's burbles and spider's screeches ringing in my ears. Then I was up and into the torchlight, facing the web-choked mine shaft in which the spawner's fires taunted me. _"You can't get in here, fool. You don't stand a chance against us," _they sneered. Well, I'd show them. Totally forgetting about my stone knife, I began punching at one of the first cobwebs. _Whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack-whack _I realised I had a sword and shredded the stupid thing out of the way. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, but where was all my stuff? Maybe I had come to the wrong spawner or something... "Eek!" I yelled as a glow-eyed brute popped into existence and sprung for me.

_Ah, eloquent as always in the face of danger, I see._

Shut. Up. My sword snapped in half and fell to the floor as the spider took another hit and I was forced to resort to punching it. "Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die..." finally it was gone and I beat the spawner with fists and elbows and feet and knees, but the metal refused to yield. Shcee-oo! I dashed backwards as another spider pounced, poisoning me and taking even longer than the first to vanish into death-dust. Back to the spawner, please just break... another bloody spider! I wasn't fast enough to react to this one as it soared over my head and latched on to my back with wicked claws, sinking its mandibles into the back of my neck and ripping out skin and veins...

_Oh, look. You're dead. What a surprise._

I floated on my back, gawping at nothing in particular. There was a moment's silence that felt like an eternity before Triston piped up. **"I guess I'll... er... respawn you then?" ** he offered, but it wasn't really a question as suddenly I found myself standing back in my house. I looked out the window, seeing that it was still night, and suddenly the fact that I'd probably lost everything hit me.

"GARGHARGHARGHARGHAAARGH!" I gargled, pressing my head against the back wall of the house and beating it with my fists. Sensing eyes on me, I whipped around to find two testificates staring at me. "What are you looking at?" I snarled and they quickly resumed staring at each other.

_Now, now, darling, play nice. You wouldn't want the _real _people of Ir Qas making an iron golem with which to whoop your butt, would you?_

They wouldn't do that! They like me!

_Oh, _you _might think that... they might not confide in you, but they trust me. Mélodieux knows everything, Mellifluousness._

Oh really? What's six hundred and forty-two divided by eight point three times the square root of one million, thirty-one thousand and twenty point four, then?

_Lots. _

That is _not _a valid answer.

_Seems totally valid in my opinion. I'm a voice in your head; your argument is invalid._

What? You can't invoke memes on me!

_I can invoke whatever I want on you. Wait, let me think a moment... lycopersicon esculentum!_

That's not a spell. That's Latin for "tomato".

_Ah, nobody knows that. I bet Harry Potter's cast it at least once. Just get on with it, will you? I'm sure your readers are anxious to know how you get out of this._

Fine, stupid voice in my head, thinks she knows everything... I descended into the realms of mumbling as I wondered what to do next. I had reached quite a dilemma. Well, I couldn't waste another second. I leapt into bed and my eyes wouldn't close fast enough; ten seconds that felt like ten hours later it was daylight and I darted to my chest, wrenching open and scanning over its contents. A single block of cobblestone caught my eye, followed by a wooden sword. There was other assorted junk in there, but not enough for a stone sword, darn it. Growling under my breath, I snatched the wooden weapon from its position underneath a couple of pumpkins and the stone block and raced out the door and down the road, out onto the grass and down the stairs into the mine. Past the newly-name Herbe Pont and then the lava-fall, Klutz's Demise, down the steps into what I vaguely recall naming Spider's Way (did I actually do that?) and across the waterfalls beyond, feet thudding on the wooden planks of the mine shaft. There was the second spawner, flaring maliciously. Using my dirt pillar as a stepping stone I leapt across the gap between the second spawner and where I stood now, I soared over the darkness and used the extra momentum to make an almighty swipe at the demonic cage.

I beat at it for what seemed like forever – maybe the sword would make it go faster? – but luck didn't seem to be in my favour today for I soon had a face full of jet-black setae and bristly legs. I killed the beast quickly and jumped across the gap again, hoping to think this through more.

"I love you, Mellifluousness!" the wooden support seemed to say as my head collided with the stupid thing for the _second time _and I fell into the pit with a horrendous _crunch._

"Oh, come ON!" I yelled as my legs decided they'd had enough and collapsed beneath me, whacking my head against the stony ground.

_Nighty-night, _Mélodieux sounded so cheery as I blacked out.


	16. Day Eight: The Plan

**A/N: Darn it, Minecraft. Y U ABUSE ME SO? D:**

**Go to (http: / imgur. com /9QC 2Y) but without the spaces or brackets to see Dragon's Gash. It's pretty darn creepy.**

_Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, escape your dreams or your soul is mine..._

WHAT. I leapt to my feet and groaned at the pain in my head, clutching my temples as my knees bent. Stupid spawner and stupid ditch and stupid support ("I love you!") and stupid game.

Wait, no it wasn't. I loved this game. What was I even talking about?

I loaded up said non-stupid game.

"I SEE YOUR VOCABULARY HAS IMPROVED!" the title screen said. Oh no, I thought as the plots for numerous fanfictions ran through my mind... still staring at the splash text, apprehension rising in my throat, I clicked on singleplayer and the list of worlds came up. I breathed, clicking on "TWIWWF III".

Trickletrickletrickletrickle clank sploosh splosh shcee!

Okay, water, a skeleton, something swimming (oh no) and a spider.

_Creeper._

It was standing behind the waterfall on the right, peering out through the gap between two blocks, empty eyes focused on one of the pit's walls. Crap. I'm dead, I'm doomed, my stuff is lost, I might as well just stop this now and go commit suicide.

_Aren't you in a cheery mood this evening? Morning? Indeterminate period of the day? Rebuild your tower and at least return to your house like a mortal._

Yeah, okay, I'd do that... I slowly dragged my view across the cave, but stopped at a particularly dark patch. Another tunnel, I just knew it. My mouth fell open in horror as a creeper leapt down a few blocks and made its way out of the tunnel at an easy, almost lazy trot, probably happy that it'd soon taste my blood. _Crap. _I breathed again as the beast turned around and walked back down its tunnel; it hadn't noticed me. I turned to my dirt tower; wow, it was high up. There was no way I could reach that high.

_Fitch. Ssssss..._ my breath caught in my throat and I whipped around, cursing quietly as the creeper swelled and hitting at it with my sword, missing every time...

BOOM.

The world turned white for a moment and there was a ringing in my ears, but I still had four hearts of health left. I'd be fine. The tower had been partly destroyed in the blast and a couple of blocks were in my inventory; I jumped up to where the dirt had been and rebuilt the tower, hesitating near the top as spiders' cries rang in my ears.

_Just go up. You'll be fine._

I did so with a fearful glance at the spawner, but it just sat there. No spiders in sight. "Stuff you!" I told it, leaping back across the gap – thankfully, the support seemed to have gotten over its feelings for me – and past the spontaneously named Aranea Falls, up the stairs past Klutz's Demise (nearly falling in the process) and up again through Herbe Pont. Down Loony's Passage and up and up and finally I reached the surface, falling flat on my face on the nice, soft grass, breathing heavily from my frantic sprint. My stuff was lost, that was for sure. I rolled onto my back; it was midday now, plenty of time to get something done.

_On your feet, fool! We've got materials to re-collect. _

Right, we did! I leapt to my feet and looked out over the village, wondering what to do. They all seemed so oblivious to my plight; I wandered around the outskirts of Ir Qas and towards the swamp. There was a pig there, running around and mocking me with its total indifference. Sudden rage towards the spider spawner boiled up within me and I chased after the swine, hacking at many blocks of tall grass in my bid to run it through. Eventually I did, breathing heavily and collecting the two porkchops it had dropped. My anger was hardly abated, however; I turned around to see a testificate wandering beside a water pool. A maniacal grin spread across my face.

_No. Don't even think about it._

I raised my wooden sword and gave a battle cry, charging towards him at a sprint and leaping off a grass block to take a swipe at his head and knock him into the water. He was eerily quiet as I chopped him into death-dust, dropping not even experience orbs.

Just a pile of ash.

I felt terrible.

_Nice work there, you homicidal maniac._

Well, that had rather put a damper on my spirits. I sprinted back into the village, whispering "I'm sorry," to a testificate as I passed. Back in my house, I had a look in my chest; surely I'd need wood for weapons? My jaw dropped open as I saw a stone pickaxe in there; had that been there _all along?_

_Most likely. Inattentive as you are, you just didn't notice it._

Quiet, you. You didn't notice it either. There was also an axe; I took both of them out and cut down a couple of trees near the swamp before setting out across the grass to look for a cave. I'd need coal for torches. I found one almost immediately; its end was shrouded in darkness, but I bust away a dirt block from the ceiling and revealed that it was, in fact, very short. I mined a few blocks of stone from the wall, which revealed another cave. A few dirt blocks later, this one, too was proved to be short and uninhabited, to I closed up the ceilings and continued on my way. Soon I reached a death-pit that opened up into a tunnel far below; was this Herbe Pont, I wondered? I thought I could see some coal on the wall of the tunnel far below, so I made a staircase to it with the cobblestone in my backpack. It was indeed coal and I mined away at it quite happily, though most of it fell down into the tunnel. Great. Thinking the fall wasn't too far, I leapt onto the stone. _CRUNCH! _I cried out as my ankle turned in a way it sure wasn't supposed to, and again as it snapped back into place. Darn Minecrafter healing abilities aren't always pleasant. Ankle throbbing in protest, I looked up again; this was indeed Herbe Pont and I could see Klutz's Demise down there, complete with wandering zombie. The pieces of coal were quickly collected and I headed back up to the surface. Oh crap, it was dusk! I dashed back into my house, a farmer close on my heels and slammed the door behind us. Why hadn't I given myself more time? This would be dangerous...

_Hurry up! Monsters will start spawning soon!_

I chopped a two-block hole in the back of my house and above my crafting table, ankle forgotten as the sun sunk below the horizon and dyed the sky tangerine. To the crafting table, trunk to planks, planks to sticks and sticks to a great number of fences. The testificate panicked at the disappearance of the wall, running out of the house and wandering around outside as I created a small pen. I could see a spider, a skeleton and a zombie in the distance, but they didn't seem bothered by my presence. The pen was finished; I used a block of stone to get back into the house and then destroyed that, not caring about collecting it. The hole was sealed and I was enclosed, but my job was not done. I whipped out my axe again and re-opened the hole, jumping out and, after crafting a gate, leaving it open as I looked around. On the hill to my right were three creepers, two spiders and an enderman. Okay... carefully avoiding the other mobs, I made a beeline for the creeper on the outskirts of the group. Unfortunately, a spider noticed me and leapt. "No! Time!" I hissed as my wooden sword chopped it into pieces. Now the creeper was alone... I inched towards it with a whisper of "Here, creeper-creeper..." suddenly it noticed me.

Running backwards to be sure it was following me, I dashed back towards the house. Right... nearly there... suddenly I fell in a pool of water and the creeper followed suit, coming closer, closer, I was backing away but where was the platform oh crap ssssssBOOM! "Darn it, creeper!" I yelled, pounding a dirt wall with my fist. After the little enclosure was repaired a zombie decided to pop in for a visit, so I had to dispose of him and make myself a new stone sword in the process. The scene was rather comical, him waiting outside patiently as I made a crafting table and crafted the knife, saying things such as "Just a second," and "Almost there," until it was done and I slaughtered him.

The second one I got into the pen, but found that I had blocked the way back into the house and therefore had to kill the poor thing. I didn't manage to; it exploded and destroyed the ground, leaving me a massive crater to full in. By the time it was done and the back wall of my house was good as new, it was dawn. Right... perhaps I'd go out and find a cave-dwelling creeper to bring back here? It seemed a good idea. I put all my stuff away except for my sword and two blocks of wood (I had to make a double-chest) and set out as the soft light of dawn spread across the land in waves. Collecting a few pieces of pork on the way, I journeyed over the plains and into the mountains, finding many caves and seeing many strange and wonderful mountains, one of which reminded me of the work of the Enderdragon. With this in mind I named it Dragon's Gash and by that time dusk was falling.

Wait. Dusk. Oh no...

_Well, now you're in for it._

I made a break for it out of the hills and across the plains, the moon looming dramatically over more mountains to my right. I rather waited for the rain and stroke of thunder or for some mysterious cloaked figure to be watching me ominously from some clifftop, cloak billowing in the overdramatic wind. There were far fewer mobs on the plains than I had thought, just a lone enderman, eyes aglow...

And a creeper.

I grinned, made sure I was heading for my house, got the beast's attention and enticed it towards the pen. Facing forwards, this time. There seemed to be a skeleton's birthday party going on outside my house, and all the skeleton's friends had been invited. "Get off my lawn, y' darn undead!" I yelled, shaking my fist at them and putting on one of those old American man accents. I suppose it could be called yelling... just very, _very _quiet yelling. There was no time to stop, though; I raced in through the gate and into the house, waiting to see if the creeper would follow, but a skeleton was rounding the corner with an arrow nocked and I was forced to block up the hole. BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG! A zombie was knocking on someone's door outside and there was no way I could put up with that infernal racket. My stone sword broke as it died and an arrow hit me almost simultaneously. I turned around to find a skeleton on my doorstep, bow trained on me.

"Um... hi... hi there... if you'll excuse me... TAKE THIS!" I gave it an almighty punch in the centre of its forehead and it flew backwards as I dashed inside the house and slammed the door behind me. Once inside I sank down against the wall and held my head in my hands.

Pet-getting. Fail.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET!"**

_Yes. The achievement of yet another failure._

You do realise that what you just said makes no sense whatsoever, right?

_Indeed. I enjoy making your tiny little brain explode. _


	17. Day Nine: Creeper Hugger

**A/N: Thanks to Wolverinejoe for that awesome map. I **_**was**_** going to do a chapter on it because when I hear "custom map" I think of adventure-y maps with signs and buildings and things, but it turns out that this one's just pretty. Pretty awesome, at that. If you guys have any fun adventure maps you'd like me to spend a chapter on, I'd be happy to. ;)**

**I think I'll try and get a screenshot every chapter, now. Just go to: **

**http:/ **twiwwf. imgur **.com/ all/**

**To see all the pictures. The most recent is on the left: Ir Qas By Night.**

"DARN IT, NOTCH!" I yelled, slamming the nearest wall hard with my fist and immediately regretting it. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..."

_That was pretty stupid. There's a zombie outside._

Wha-

BANG. BANG-BANG. BANG. BANG.

Oh. Well, I didn't have a sword anymore, so I'd need to craft one.

BANG.

"Keep it down, y' darn undead!" I bellowed, shaking my fist at the door before turning around and crafting myself a sword. The zombie was bashing away at the door quite happily, so I opened it up and let the creature inside, slaying it in a few deadly swipes. "Victory once again for Mellifluousness the Mighty!" I proclaimed quietly so as not to wake the villagers, putting one hand on my hip and thrusting my sword at the ceiling dramatically.

_Have you any idea how-_

Shcee-oo!

No. No I do not. I think that spider does, however. I looked out the window with a grin to search for the creature, but it was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't see it, but suddenly felt like going upstairs to catch a screenshot, perhaps. Shooting up the ladder, I emerged onto the roof and- CRUNCH! I gave a start forward and whipped around to find a spider there. "Die!" I ordered, chopping it into pieces. The horrible creature definitely managed to get a few blows in, though, and my skin was soon latticed with scratches. Collecting some string and a few experience orbs, I held on to the edge of the fence that acted as a balustrade and leaned over to take a screenshot. I noticed a few creepers lurking on the edge of the trees beyond the village, but there were skeletons in the way so I decided against trying to acquire a pet.

_You are a complete and utter idiot. How could you think that such an incredibly ridiculous idea could ever work-?_

Okay, okay, enough ranting. Calm thyself, Mélodieux. I turned around to see the swamp – and a forlorn green form sitting on the hill. A grin spread across my face.

_No. It's not going to- _but I was already down the ladder and putting my stuff in the chest except for the wood, punching a pair of blocks out of the back wall and stepping outside. There was the creeper, off to my left; there was another to the right and a zombie too close for comfort, so when he noticed me I made short work of him. "WITH MY FISTS!" I cried, holding up two clenched hands in triumph. I couldn't let myself get distracted, though; I made my way out of the open gate and towards the hill until it noticed me, turning its doleful stare on me as it approached. Still grinning, I turned around and walked calmly back towards the house, the other creeper joining in our slightly deadly conga line as I herded them into the enclosure, jumped up the wooden block I had placed there and blocked off the exit. Hardly able to believe that it had worked, I stared at the wall for a few moments, jaw open. Had it seriously worked? Could this be possible?

_Not just yet. You didn't close the gate._

Oh, right, that. I checked for monsters through the windows before heading outside, picking up a piece of rotten flesh from the foot of the stairs on my way. I headed around the side of the house, planning on closing the gate, and was met with an open, frowning maw and the crunch-crunch-crunch of the creeper's footsteps as it headed towards me. I gave it a wide berth, hoping to trap the other one, but it was perched on the block of planks I hadn't had the time to destroy and quickly hopped over the barrier that should have trapped it. And so I found myself chased by a pair of creepers I had hoped would be my friends.

_I'd resist the urge to say "I told you so", but that would be a waste of such a perfect opportunity. I told you so._

I ran in a bit of a circle, unable to sprint, before dashing for my front door and running inside, placing a block beside it and closing it in my own face a few times. The creepers immediately lost interest in me; I found upon heading upstairs that I had left one next to the pond and the other on the left side of my house. Going back downstairs again with a little dance of rage, I ate a few apples, retrieved a massive amount of steak from the furnace and replaced it with raw beef and ended up looking at the floor, unsure of what to do. Wait, I had a bed, didn't I? I was so used to _not _having one that I'd forgotten. I turned around; there it was, sheets a lovely violet. Oh. Without further ado, I leapt into it, pulling the covers over myself as my eyes slowly closed...

Goodnight, Minecraft.

_Goodnight, creeper-hugging fool._

Wow, I haven't heard one of those in a while. I fell asleep.


	18. Day Ten: Something Insanely Adventurous

**A/N: One hundred and three screaking reviews. I love you guys. 'Twas suggested by xoxLEXIxox that I do something insanely adventurous to please your short attention spans and while we all know what happened last time I tried one of her suggestions *cough*computerdeath*cough* I decided it would be fun to try. Therefore, I present to you the World in Which We Fail chapter eighteen: Something Insanely Adventurous!**

**I fixed the imgur thing; you should be able to see all the images. I stuck a screenshot of the swamp up, too. I had to tear myself away from the Yogbox to play this. Far too much fun, though I'm more terrible at it than anyone you've watched on YouTube, I bet.**

I leapt out of bed with a spring in my step, plans for the day already made.

_So, Mellifluousness, what incredibly insane acts do you have planned?_

"Elementary, my dear pestilence!" I declared, finger in the air and stereotypical British accent activated. "We adjourn 'cross the plains -" I gestured widely towards them - "To find a biome of the taiga persuasion, where we shall locate faithful canine companions that will make no attempt to blow us into the Void whatsoever!"

_Amazing. For once you actually had a half-rational idea. Question is, how will you acquire the bones needed to tame said faithful canine companions?_

"Er... we'll stay the night," I said simply. "It'll be like a sleepover! In the belly of the beast!"

_Oh boy, we're doomed. Triston, you better have an "I told you so" achievement ready._

"**I think we're going to live. I always wanted a puppy."**

_And once again, I am the only sane one present._

"You got that right, voice in my head," I chortled, crafting myself an axe and pickaxe and taking a sword from my chest. I took half of the steak and the wooden planks, too; I was thinking ahead. I would leave a breadcrumb trail as I travelled to avoid getting lost. It was ingenious!

Opening the door, I stepped outside and stretched luxuriously, taking a deep breath of the crisp morning air. Delightful! Facing the plains and the mountains beyond, in which lay Dragon's Gash, I set off at an easy lope. I could cover plenty of chunks in just one day at this rate! Wood in hand, I wondered at the best place to stick the first block... and stopped. A mottled green form was sitting on a hillside, staring intently at the dirt.

A creeper.

Fury rising inside me at the sheer uncooperativeness of the blasted creatures, I roared a battle cry and charged, feet moving like lightning and sword held out in front of me anime style. With a mighty leap I was soaring above it and bringing my sword down on it; I landed practically on top of it and it swelled in surprise before I hit it away from me. Swipe, swipe, swipe, and I leapt on top of it again and ran it straight through. Victory! As it vanished in smoke I raised my sword and crowed in triumph, the death-dust creating quite a cool effect as it spiralled up around me.

_Oh look, a dead thing's ashes are sticking to your skin._

Wait, what? Oh. "EW!" I yelled, frantically brushing it off. It seemed to love me as much as that mine shaft's support, firmly stuck to the skin around my lower body. "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew," I cried, only managing to get some on my hands, too. Finally I calmed down and, breathing heavily, continued, but not before I placed a wayblock on the spot, a two-block high wood construction. Past the Grave of the Laws of Physics (for that's what I've named the place where the underwater furnace worked) and further still. But what was this? A great amount of coal was tucked into a hillside, in a little gulley which was made open to the sky by a small hole at the foot of the mountain. After a few issues with the ground or lack thereof, I made some stairs down to the coal and snatched the lot from the rock. Up to the surface again and further along in the side of the same mountain was a patch of bare rock and, lo and behold, more coal! I took some but not all due to technical difficulties (that is, gravel), bringing my total up to twenty-five. Excellent!

I continued, collecting a pumpkin and hopping up a hill, stopping with a gasp at the sight. A panorama of verdigris and forest was spread out before me, sprawling swampland that stretched out for many chunks in any direction. It was beautiful. I paused to take a screenshot and stuck a wayblock down, though not before falling off and breaking something. Finally I set out again, placing wayblocks here and there as I left the swamp behind and entered an oak forest; I found a ravine that was open to the sky and collected some iron from it, but nearly fell in a few times and decided to leave the rest be. Suddenly the sky was darkening and the moon was just getting its white, crater-pocked butt over the horizon when I reached a river, still immersed in forest. There was a mob on the other bank, I could see, moonlight glinting off its shiny carapace. A skeleton. Perfect! I built a wayblock in the shallows and crossed the river sneak-attack style, poking my head above the water like a crocodile hunting its prey. "Dramatic music, Triston?" I whispered.

"**Daada-daada-daada-daada-daada-daada-daada-daada..."**

Shark theme. Perfect. I yelled a battle cry, leaping from the water with my sword in the air and bringing it down on the skeleton's skull. Soon it was nothing but death-dust and I prepared to move on.

_Wait a moment, fool. What's that in your inventory?_

I looked; to my surprise, in there was... "A bow! Oh, this is brilliant!"

_Yes, now you can stand back and snipe things from a distance like the coward you are._

Quiet, you. Moving on from there and crossing another stretch of water, I returned to land and-

Fitch. SsssssBOOM! I was thrown backwards as a creeper created a crater in the island, leaving a few dirt blocks floating dispiritedly above the ground. "Ow..." I moaned, getting to my feet and wincing. Now I was burned, too; I had only three units of hunger left and wasn't regenerating health with any speed. Thankfully, I still had seventeen pieces of steak in my inventory and munched on a couple, filling my stomach and beginning to regenerate health. I continued through the trees, eventually sprint-jumping from treetop to treetop and over the heads of a few oblivious skeletons. Soon I was forced to return to the forest floor, but there were no mobs in sight. I placed a wayblock and looked out over the small lake I was on the shore of; the tip of a snowy pine was visible on the other side. Taiga! That would be nice to-

Fwiit-thuk! Suddenly there was an arrow sticking out of my shoulder and I gave a start forward before whipping around, trying to spot the offending undead. There he was; I knocked him into the water with a few swipes of my blade and dispatched him with another, collecting some experience, an arrow and a bone. Bidding a squid good evening, I made it over a deep bit and stuck a wayblock in the shallows before making it to the opposite shore. Managing not to get all nostalgic about being back in the taiga, I crested a small rise on the other side of which a zombie roamed. "Dance with me, zombie!" I ordered, jumping down and reaching out to hug him. He proceeded to bite my arm and I yelped in pain, transferring my sword to my other hand and running him through with it when he wouldn't let go. Coughing and waving a hand to dispel the death-dust, I examined my arm. There were teeth marks in it. I waited for them to go away. They didn't.

_Awww, the zombie sends his wuvs. I think he likes you, Mellifluousness!_

Ew. I shook my arm half-heartedly as though to shake off the bite marks, but they were incredibly stubborn.

_Oh my gosh, I think it's Gregory! He must have been spending too much time in the mine and kind of missed dusk, so by the time he got out there were lots of zombies around and, well... you know the rest, I'm sure._

Oh really? Then how did he get all the way out here?

_I don't know, maybe he's friends with an enderman. That means... you killed Gregory! MURDERER!_

You discount my theories, I discount yours. Therefore, you're completely wrong. Go fall down a death-hole. I continued through the taiga, acquiring another arrow from a skeleton and slaying another zombie soon I reached a small clearing, dispatching another skeleton and a creeper, too. Fitch... shwoom, it added sadly as it fell to the ground.

Fitch.

Wait, wha-

BOOM.

"DARN IT, CREEPER!" I yelled, shaking my fist at the nothingness of the void.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'I Told You So'!"**


	19. The Legend of Coldoz: Day One

_Failing miserably at whistling but having fun at doing so, I shut the white-painted door behind me and twirled my iron sword in my hand as I sauntered towards the tiny wheat farm out the back of my oddly-shaped dirt house, situated on the outskirts of the Mayan village of Yaxchilan. I was going to check on the progress of the wheat, an important ingredient in the taming of horses; I had seen unicorns earlier and wanted one for myself. The sight that greeted me, however, was far from ordinary._

_A black panther crouched on the grass, hackles raised and baring its teeth at the glowing gold vis crystal that hovered menacingly in the air in front of it, jangling threateningly. I realised what was happening._

_This was a_

_SHOWDOWN_

_ON _

_THE _

_HILL!_

_Triston started up some dramatic fight music as the two opponents prepared to duel. __**"Dada da dada da dada da dumdumdum**__**dada da dada da dada da dumdumdum do, do, do, dada-dada da do, do, do, dada-da DA!" **__Panther versus crystal, feline versus freakish belligerent inanimate object. The battle of the century, the fight to outdo all fights…_

_ZAP._

"_Merow!" the panther exclaimed, leaping into the air._

_ZAP._

"_Merow!"_

_ZAP._

"_Merow!"_

_ZAP._

"_Merow!"_

_ZAP._

"_Merow!"_

_I stared at them in disbelief._

_ZAP._

"_Merow!"_

_Without further ado I walked up to the panther and stuck my sword through its head, ending its misery. The vis crystal floated off, jangling happily._

_I walked away, laughing hysterically._

**YOU BIN YOGG'D!**

**A/N: I couldn't resist sharing. Seriously, I walked out of my house one Yogbox morning to find a vis crystal zapping the heck out of a poor panther. It was HILARIOUS. I think Yogg'd will be a bit of a mini-series whenever I have something funny to share. Expect Israphel sometime soon. -_- Now for another series I'll be starting. Its title is, as you may have already guessed, the Legend of Coldoz! Curtisimo dearest sent me a message detailing a challenging world under the seed 'gimmieabreak'. Does it spawn you in a house? NOT ANYMORE. Now it spawns you on a large tundra-y island with thirty-seven trees and a high enderman and skeleton spawn rate. Sounds painful. I've been given a few challenges to do while here, so I'll be working away at them every second chapter unless you guys prefer just plain regular World in Which We Fail.**

**Also, it was **_**incredibly **_**foggy this morning. My first thought upon coming into the lounge was "Hey, who turned the render distance down?" XD I think I'm infected with 'Craft-itis. **

**NOW WE BEGIN!**

"Okay, Triston, you ready?"

"**As I'll ever be."**

"Right. Create New World, please."

"**The seed?"**

"You know it, bro. 'Gimmieabreak'.

"**Name it?"**

"Not yet. Our dear reviewers will decide the title."

"**Hokay. Hold on a moment… switching level, generating level, building terrain, saving chunks…"**

_You're completely insane._

"I specialise in-"

Crunch-crunch!

"-Insane." I was facing a tree. Lava popped in my ears. Explosive marshmallows, I thought with a snigger, turning to face the offending pool. It was pretty big, at least five or six blocks across, I estimated. It was rather hard to tell, considering the lava. Challenges, Triston?

"**Challenge one: find the lava pool and build your house very near it."**

"Well, step one completed," I said aloud. "I feel so productive. Step two: building materials!" I turned back to the tree I had spawned facing and punched it to sawdust, collecting a sapling almost immediately and placing and placing it where it predecessor had grown. Removing the remaining leaves, I acquired another sapling and planted it on the ground nearby. "Thirty-eight trees now! In your face, tundra-island! Dang, it needs a name," I added. Well, it was an enormous desolate island, correct? Just like Australia, only cold where Aus was hot! Don't take offence, Aussies. You know I love you.

_As you were saying before you went off on a moronic tangent…_

Oh, right. Maybe… maybe I could call it Cold Oz! Yeah, or maybe Coldoz… was that better? I was unsure. But that would make this series…

"**The Legend of Coldoz!" **Triston chipped in, his flair for the dramatic taking over. That worked, I thought. That worked well. The Legend of Coldoz!

_And how badly Mellifluousness failed at surviving there. That's a little long, though; how about you just change your name to Idiocy and call this series that instead?_

Quiet, you. And no. No I will not. "Let it begin!" I declared, pumping my fist in the air. That hill right behind the lava pool would work well for a house, I thought. I skirted the lava and ascended; there was a small protrusion that functioned as its peak, looking like a suitable spot. I converted my logs into sixteen wooden planks and set up a little rectangle on the top of the hill. It was only when I had finished the base that I realised the inside was only one by three blocks.

_Looks like a lovely, spacious abode. If you have the Gulliver mod. Which you don't._

After punching away the wall on the side of the hill where the most space was, I expanded the house three blocks on each side and ended up one block short for the wall joining them.

A total score of forty-two trees, a bit of landscaping and four apples later, my house was complete and I had thirteen planks left. From those I made a crafting table, shortly followed by a door and then a pickaxe. All my planks were now gone, but I still had two sticks left. I could use those to craft a stone pickaxe; there were quite a few caves around and most had coal in them. I exited the house and stuck the door down before heading to the nearest cave, a massive great thing from which the moans of zombies emanated. A lighting glitch made the cave look far darker than it was, blackness straying onto the sunlit stone that made a pathway down into it. "Anyone home?" I asked tentatively, making my way towards a block of coal. No response; a good start. Eyeing the darkness warily, I hopped down to the level of the coal and chipped out three blocks of stone from around it; I might as well make a stone pickaxe first.

Upon arriving at my house, I discovered I had only two sticks left and already music was playing, heralding the coming night. I was wracked with indecision; spend the night in the dark or get a stone pickaxe? Pickaxe… no, torches… pick… torches… pick… torches…

_Oh, go get the coal and make some torches._

I did so, cautiously avoiding a skeleton too close to the entrance of the cave for my liking. Just a single block of coal made four torches (I'm not going to ask how that works) and I panicked in the growing dusk, zipping back into my house and slamming the door behind me. It was pitch black inside, so I stuck a torch above the door. The light! It burns! Aaaargh…

_Stop being such an idiot._

I'm not an idiot! Most of the time… some of the time… sort of… shut up. You're no fun. I cleared the floor of snow since I had nothing else to do. Well, now I was doomed to a night of boredom seeing as I didn't have a bed.

_Oh no you're not. Get out there and kill things._

Good idea!

_I know. I'm full of them._

I crafted myself a stone knife from the one stick I had left and two blocks of cobblestone. Not even trying to whistle this time, I went out the door and into the night. Suddenly I realised how incredibly _cold _tundra can get when there's no sun to warm the place up. My breath clouded in front of my face and my hair stood on end. So… cold...

_Killing things will warm you up. _

You… have… a very sick mind… teeth chattering, I looked around. A spider sat on the snow a chunk or so away, utterly unaffected by the cold. I raced up to it and hacked it to pieces, too cold even to give a battle cry. Iron armour would _not _work well in a place like this… the lava was bright and warm; I raced over to it and sat down next to it, warming my frozen body.

_Why don't you take a dip? This world would certainly be better off without you in it. _

Okay, now you're just depressing. Warmer now, I got to my feet and surveyed the terrain again, noticing a creeper wandering around under a couple of trees. What I wouldn't give for fur like that right now… I charged it with a yell of "You have nothing on roflcondas!" and lopped its head off. Seriously, I had woken up one Hack/Mine morning to find _four _of the hideous things circling right in front of me. I had been camping out on the Twisted Plains and obviously hadn't gone to bed early enough, or maybe the game just hated me because later that day I found myself being pursued by a massive great blue one dubbed 'Stormblade' by the tag above its head. That had _not _been a good day.

_Stop reminiscing and continue._

Right. I made an about turn and headed off in the opposite direction, towards a frozen-over river which had interesting rock formations on the other side. A spider greeted me and I greeted it with my sword before heading to the left and stopping dead. _Four _skeletons wandered about just before me. _Four. _I had never seen so many in one place at one time!

_He wasn't kidding about the obscene spawn rate, was he?_

A little bit of exploring, paranoia about roflcondas, an enderman and an arrow through my door later I was back at my house and slightly out of breath. I would not rest yet, though; there was still much night to go! It was only midnight, after all. Feeling a little chilled, I stopped by the lava pool again. Curious, I hit at it with my sword and heard it strike stone. _Thok. _I grinned, whipping my pickaxe out and beginning to chip away at the stone beneath the molten rock. Taptaptap tap taptaptap tap taptaptaptap _thok! _Hiss. And so the demise of a cobblestone block was brought about.

_Small things amuse small minds, I see._

Indeed, Mélodieux, indeed. Spotting a bizarre rock formation in the distance, I decided to investigate. There was quite a bit of open ground in the way, populated by a zombie, a spider and a few skeletons. I broke into a sprint, hiding behind a convenient cow as I neared the zombie, avoiding the spider and skeletons completely and soon arriving at the hill. It was a sheer, rocky cliff, draped with snow and having a jagged hole in it as though an ender-dragonet had taken the time to burrow through. Leading up to it was a small basin, in the left wall of which I could see coal! I walked up to it and mined away. Even more coal now in my inventory, I looked to the hole and-

_Fwiit-thuk! _There was an arrow sticking out of my shoulder. _Four _skeletons now stood around the hole, empty gazes trained on me and bows at the ready.

_Wow. You certainly have the greatest of luck with mobs, don't you?_

I screamed and dashed between them at a sprint, hurtling through the hole at top speed as arrows soared through the air. Abruptly I was out the other side and dashing across the snow. Turning around, I saw no evidence of them following; my shoulders sagged as I breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe.

A skeleton took a few steps out of the hole and looked around. Its empty sockets locked on my eyes. Its death-grin widened.

_So much for that._

Down to three units of hunger now, I practically shoved an apple down my throat and bolted as far away as I could. Eventually I looked back again; I was far enough away, so I climbed the hill instead and looked out over the terrain. There was quite a view from up here; the sun was rising and tinting the land tangerine. Music began to play and I posed dramatically, staring off into the distance, sword at my side and hands on my hips.

"**And so it begins… the Legend of Coldoz! See the camera view spiral away dramatically, revealing a massive frosty island of ice and snow, caves and caverns, lava and water, hills and mountains, nigh-infinite oceans on all sides…"**

_And a clumsy Minecrafter tumbling down a hill after being shot by a skeleton. Again. _

They didn't – ow – need – ow – to know that! OW!

_Oh, but it's so much fun to tell them._

"**AND SO IT BEGINS!"**


	20. Day Eleven: Vester Faciem

**A/N: I had a sudden urge to write this. Lucky you. Procrastinating? Ah ha ha… noooo… what makes you think that? You must be schizophrenic. Because, y'know, **_**I'm **_**sure not. Not at all. At. All. **

**I'd really love to join a server, but the thought of going into Minecraft with a bunch of strangers and - *shudder* - **_**foreigners **_**is terrifying to a noob such as myself. Anything fun you guys have to recommend?**

**Google Translate is such fun, as was this chapter to write.**

"Good mooorning, Minecraft!" I sang, leaping to my feet and back into the World in Which We Fail. "O bountiful bunch of blocky… blasphemy," I finished lamely. "Wait, why is it dark outside?"

_Remember last time?_

Ah. Right. Last time. I frowned.

_Your stuff…?_

"My stuff!" I yelled, throwing open the door and racing outside. It had to be at least a day's travel away and I only had half that time to retrieve it! "Oh no, oh no, oh no," I muttered, flying across the grass and avoiding a trio of zombies. I passed a wayblock and what had to be at least _seven _creepers suddenly noticed me. Mouth forming an O of horror, I darted to the side and avoided them, spending a few worrying moments of not knowing where I was heading before I spotted the Grave of the Laws of Physics and the wayblock near it. Dashing past the Grave now with a spider in pursuit, I reached the swamp and found the next wayblock; I spent some time searching the water and the trees beyond but soon located the one after that and continued. Walking over one of the swampy islands, a mushroom suddenly appeared in my hand; I stopped and looked at it blankly for a moment.

_A spontaneous mushroom. How bizarre. Whatever you do, don't say-_

"Herobrine planted it!" I proclaimed, grinning as she growled in annoyance.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Spontaneous Mushroom'," **Triston exclaimed. **"You should make a big wall of signs to record all your achievements on."**

"Good idea," I began, but Mélodieux interrupted me.

_There will be time to reminisce about all your ridiculous accomplishments _after _you reacquire all your things. Put down the mushroom and let's go._

Clutching the mushroom tight in my hand and poking my tongue out in defiance, I continued my sprint into the oak forest. I began to tire as I entered the trees, slowing down as my strength left me. There wasn't enough time! I couldn't afford to do this!

"**Well, at least this can't get any-"**

The heavens yawned in protest and spat forth great gobs of rain, chilly and sharp. "DARN IT, NOOOTCH!" I cursed, shaking a fist at the sky.

_Oh good, you didn't say-_

"And Herobrine!" I added, grinning as the rain plastered my fringe over my eyes. She growled again. I advanced at a walking pace through the downpour, too hungry now to sprint. I crested hills and hopped over treetops, avoided a crater and darted between tree trunks. Soon the wayblocks grew closer and closer together and on the other side of a great expanse of water was the taiga. There was a zombie standing over there, blazing in the weak sunlight. "I'm on fire… in the rain! Watch me burn as I… something…" I sang, dancing on the shore of the lake.

_I'm rolling my eyes. You can't see it, but I am._

Sure you are. By the time I had reached the ice the zombie was dead; I had forgotten that in taiga and tundra biomes it snowed instead of rained. The lovely crystals didn't seem to protect zombies from daylight as water did. I caught snowflakes on my tongue and hands, delighting in the novelty of them. The night was long gone by then, I think.

_You have the attention span of something with no attention span._

Wow. That was _really _terrible. Running out of insults, Mélodieux?

_Running out of caring. MOVE IT._

Moving it! "Sheesh, what a grouch," I muttered, advancing again through the trees with mushroom in hand. "I dub thee 'Spontaneous'!" I suddenly declared, waggling my fingers at it as though to imbue its very name with magical Minecraft power.

_Well, lycopersicon esculentum to you too._

Homo sapiens.

_Canis familiaris._

Vester faciem. Translation: your face.

_How does that even-_

It's a New Zealand thing. I think. You wouldn't understand.

_I'm a Kiwi too, adipem excors. That is, 'fat idiot'._

Vester faciem, Mélodieux. Vester bloody faciem. I was quite close to my death point now; I could practically smell it. It smelled an awful lot like spider, for some reason…

_Magna aranea behind you, excors! _

What? Ah. 'Big spider'. I broke into a sprint as the beast screeched in annoyance that it had been discovered, pursuing me through the trees at an alarming rate. Suddenly I whipped around and hit at it with Spontaneous, causing it to cry out and jump backwards.

_That worked surprisingly well._

Shrugging my shoulders, I bolted again through the trees, leaving the spider far behind. As sickeningly joyous music rang in my ears I realised that must mean it was midday… or, even worse, _dusk._ Heart thudding in my chest, I dashed up a hill…

And breathed, a smile spreading across my face. There was the crater, a brown spot amongst the white, experience and items of all kinds lying scattered around. "Oh, beatus die! Eugepae! Proin! Et cetera!" I cried, scrambling for all my things.

_Now you're just getting excessive, adipem excors._

"Vester faciem!" I declared, leaping to my feet with my sword in hand and the rest of the items in my bag. "This is perfect, Mélodieux, so shut up!" With these words of wisdom, I whipped around and began to head the other way.

Approximately a day later, night had fallen and I was about as lost as a noob on a Player-versus-Player server. That is, very lost and very, _very_ doomed. As it turned out, the way was a _lot _more obscure when heading in the opposite direction. It was still snowing, of course. New and bright red spider bites on my front, I returned to this taiga wayblock for what had to be at least the fifth time…

To see a skeleton standing there.

"Damnaret eam!" I hissed.

_Go on, then. Run for your pathetic life._

I ran for my pathetic life, got turned into a pincushion and nearly blown up to show for it and returned to the wayblock with a rather heavy heart. The depressing midnight music began to play, not helping my mood in the slightest.

_Try building a tower, perhaps, to see the wayblock through the trees?_

She sounded more like she was trying to hold back laughter than be sympathetic. Sighing heavily, I took the twenty-six blocks of cobblestone from my backpack and built a tower underneath myself, looking around when I was a few blocks above the treetops. Nothing there, nothing there, nothing there… but wait, was that a frozen-over river with green on its other side? It was just on the edge of vision. Brightening up, I snuck backwards a built and bridge a few blocks long in an effort to see…

"DAMNARET!" I bellowed, jumping by accident, breaking the sneak and falling to the harsh ground, losing all but four hearts and landing, of course, on my face.

"Summus eam, summus eam, summus bloody eam," I muttered, face buried in the snow and voice muffled. Mélodieux cracked up with laughter.

"**Um… achievement get…?"**

"I'll 'achieve get' your bloody faciem off!" I cried, voice still muffled by the snow.

"**Well, sorr-y! I was just trying to be nice and I thought you would appreciate it…" **he descended into mumbling and I sighed, pushing myself into a sitting position.

"No, I'm sorry, Triston. I was wrong to take my anger out on you…"

"**Aw, thanks."**

"…When this is all obviously Herobrine's plot to murder me," I finished, grinning as I felt Mélodieux's metaphorical hands closing around my throat, trying to throttle me. "Oh, can't forget Israphel," I added. She screeched in annoyance. "Right, so I think that if we head in this direction, then we can- damnaret!" I yelled, leaping to my feet and whipping out my sword as a zombie materialised from the shadows, arms outstretched and mouth open hungrily. I awarded him a slash across the everything and he fell into death-dust. "Sorry," I said solemnly, but not too solemnly. He _had _tried to kill me, after all. "Onwards!" I declared, looking up to gauge the direction of the bridge and setting off at a sprint. Darting between the tree trunks at the speed of enderman (as opposed to the speed of light), I squealed with delight as I caught up to the wayblocks and avoided a trio of zombies, yelling "'scuse me pardon me coming through bye!" before swan-diving into the icy river and losing them. I poked my tongue out at them as I reached the wooden wayblock in the centre of the lake, stopping to rest in the shallow bit there. A creeper and skeleton wandered on the opposite bank; gee, where had I seen this before, I wondered sarcastically, remembering the explosion-pin-cushion combination of earlier. Tonight wasn't going too well for me.

_Begin your advance; we have to get home sooner or later._

I crept forward through the water, keeping my eyes on the skeleton, which was closest. Right, I was almost to the shore, so-

_Canis lupus._

What?

_Canis lupus. On the shore. Past the creeper._

I looked… and gaped. A wolf. Behind that creeper, looking around calmly. "O mea bonitas," I murmured, awed. 'Oh my goodness', for any non-Latin-speakers out there. I looked in my inventory; a single bone. I replaced Spontaneous with it and began to inch towards the canine before the skeleton's gaze was suddenly fixed on me and it began heading towards me. "You don't see me, you don't see me… invisibilitatem!" I cried, waving my finger at myself with a flourish. Nothing happened, but the skeleton still wasn't shooting me. I wondered why…

_Dissiliunt res behind you. That is, 'explode thing'._

WHAT-

Fitch. SSsssss… BOOM.

"Dampnare, dissiliunt res!" I cried, shaking my fist at the Void. 'Damn you, explode thing!'

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Latina orator'!"**

"And that is…?"

"**Latin speaker!"**

There was a momentary pause while we contemplated this.

"Vester. Faciem."


	21. Day Twelve: Worst Narrator Ever

**A/N: Ah, this was fun. WE HAS TITLE PAGE! Look at it in all its amazingness. That should be a word. It took me about four evenings to draw, so you BETTER like it. It was also great fun to draw and colour in; drawn in my notebook, coloured in with Paint . net. I know I'm supposed to be in Coldoz right now, but I think I'll do it every **_**two **_**chapters now because I couldn't resist writing this. **

**To answer a question, no, my name is **_**not '**_**Melissa' and is in fact nowhere **_**near **_**'Melissa'. The only Melissa I've ever met was a jerk. :P That's why I prefer being called Flu for short over Melli, because the latter sounds like something you'd call a Melissa or - *shudder* - a **_**Mélodieux. **_

***shudder***

**Kudos to you if you get the reference. If you do not, you led a deprived childhood.**

We look up to see the sun in the centre of the sky, gently sending down warm rays to tickle our face. Around us the long grass whispers in the gentle breeze and above us the clouds float lazily past. To the sky we arise, our viewpoint overcome with azure for a moment until we reach a suitable height and it slides downwards so it is level with the horizon. Before us are the plains around Ir Qas, followed by the peaceful village itself and the great forest beyond that, a patchwork quilt of greens and golds. We start forwards, descending towards the village, but bank sharply to the left and head towards a rather extended house, a dark green swamp and a peculiar wooden construction…

A dark-scaled figure, attaching signs to the great wooden thing with the help of a small tower of wooden planks, whips around abruptly to face us, magenta locks flying out behind her in the wind.

"**Triston, what the **_**heck **_**are you doing? There's no freaking **_**wind **_**in Minecraft! And why am I speaking in bold? **_**Why are you narrating?"**_

Aw, it's so much fun. Look, I can do a barrel roll! Our viewpoint flips dizzyingly and spirals out of control for a moment before returning to its original position. The endergirl rolls her eyes.

"**Whatever, Triston. I'd like to have the narration back now."**

Just a _liiittle _bit longer? Pretty-pretty please?

_**Gosh, no. Look, even **_**I'm **_**talking in bold. I feel like… like **_**you. **_**I hate it. I hate it so much.**_

I think you sound good in bold. As a bonus, I have ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER!

_**Eety-beety living space. That is, the inside of **_**her **_**head.**_

"**Well, speaking in bold-speak certainly doesn't make you any kinder."**

How about you tell our readers what you're doing, Flu?

"**What you suggested last time," **she replies, turning around again to adjust the nearest sign. The wooden construction appears to be a giant notice board, covered in various signs and raised two blocks off the ground by fence posts. It's five blocks across, made of oak planks. In its centre, sticking out the top, is a singular block; the sign on it reads:

WALL  
>OF<br>ACHIEVEMENTS

_**Ah. So it's everything you've failed at, recorded for all the villagers to see so they can laugh at you.**_

Flu glares at thin air. **"Why the present tense, anyway?"**

I like present tense. It's all… present-y. It makes me feel current. Up with the times, yo!

"**I don't know **_**anyone **_**who says that."**

Oh. Well, now you do. I feel so powerful right now… can I make lightning, do you think? I wanna make lightning! SMITE! SMITE! SMITE!

"**No. No you cannot make lightning. No smiting, Triston. Look, let's go get some stuff done," **she resolves, finishing off the last sign and destroying the wooden tower from beneath her.

_**Quick, quick! Smite her before she notices! **_

"**Ha, ha, ha," **Flu states sarcastically. **"Hilarious, I'm sure. Go die in a hole."**

_**Love you too.**_

Let's all share the love, Mellifluousness!

She rolls her eyes before shuddering as cave noise resounds, a bit like a jet passing overhead… underground. We follow over her shoulder as she heads inside and stores a great multitude of signs inside her chest; it's been about three days and she has acquired two full stacks of wood from the nearby forest. Climbing the ladder and leaning out over the balcony railing, she stares off into the distance. **"What do you think we should do today, guys? I'm running out of things to do…"**

I know, I know! We should get the reviewers to give achievements to us like inthelittlewood!

_**That's ridiculous, Triston. It's probably copyrighted.**_

Yeah, but I'm a Narrator! I defy copyright!

_**All you defy is reason.**_

Copyright too…

"**Let's go mining!" **Flu suddenly declares, rearranging her inventory so her sword, pickaxe and axe are attached to her belt and heading back downstairs.

_**Wonderful. Maybe we can avoid getting eaten by cave spiders this time.**_

"**That would be nice," **the girl muses as she reaches the mine and heads down the stairs. Down Loony's Passage and towards Klutz's Demise, above us we see Herbe Pont and there is the magma fall…

"**Hold on," **Mellifluousness realises, stopping in her tracks, **"I forgot torches!"**

_**Oh my goodness…**_

One trip to the house later we are back at Klutz's Demise with a stack of sixty-four torches in hand. Noticing the still-dark cave that winds away to the left, Flu whips out her torches and strides forward confidently, prepared as ever to brave the darkest of places…

_**That is, creeping up like a coward because she's terrified out of her mind and never, EVER prepared to brave ANYTHING. Stop over-glorifying everything.**_

Meany. Don't make me give you a baby voice.

_**What do you mean, give me a baby voice-?**_

Abruptly Mélodieux starts speaking with a lisping baby voice!

_**Wait, WHAT? You can'th do thith to me! What the-? How ith thith happening? TWITHTON! WHAT DID YOU DO?**_

Amazing as ever, Triston the handsome narrator ignores obnoxious Mélodieux's pleas for forgiveness as Mellifluousness creeps down the darkened tunnel, placing torches on the walls and heedless to the argument playing out between the two voices in her head. **"Thank Notch for that," **she mutters. The cave abruptly drops off, a familiar waterfall and abandoned mineshaft visible below. **"Hey, it's, it's that spider place! Where I died a whole bunch of times! I think I named it but I can't remember now… holy crap, skeleton!" **Flu hisses, throwing herself against the wall lest it spot her. It seems caught in a cobweb just to the left of the mineshaft's entrance, but hasn't seen her yet. Noticing some iron in the wall with a pleasantly-surprised **"Ooh," **she whips out her pick and collects the stuff.

_**Thewiouthly, Twithton, the joke'th over now. Give me my voith back.**_

Nah. Mellifluousness, I don't think going in there right now is the best of ideas. **"Yeah," **she agrees, turning around thankfully and zipping back up the passageway. **"I think I'll call it Skeleton's Reach," **she adds conversationally, hair flying out behind her as she dashes past Herbe Pont. **"What's up with Mélodieux, anyway?"**

_**Twithton's as much of an idiot as you, that'th what.**_

Snickering at her voice, Flu makes her way down Loony's Passage and begins to ascend the stairs.The sound of a footstep on gravel makes her turn her head in surprise and her eyes widen at what she sees. **"Loony?" **The testificate looks at her, possibly smiling underneath his huge nose from where he stands in a small alcove.

"In a sense."

"**Oh, cool. Wait, WHAT?"**

_**Did Loony jutht TALK?**_

Oh dear.

Malicious laughter fills our ears as ghostly white tendrils escape the testificate's body, shooting to his side where they swirl and twist until an awfully humanoid form appears. Hair and a beard, a slightly scruffy shirt and pants, grey shoes; the man is slightly taller than Flu and his eyes are about the same colour as his body only more vibrant, glowing brightly. He grins wickedly, showing fangs, hands folded behind his back. Flu gapes.

"Hello, Mellifluousness. It's nice to finally meet you."

"**Are… you… **_**Herobrine?" **_she exclaims, taking a fearful step back.

"What was your _first _clue?" he snarls, reaching out a surprisingly solid and wickedly-clawed hand to grab the girl by the throat. She lets out a strangled gasp as he lifts her into the air like she's light as a feather and brings her face close to his.

"You've been joking about us for some time now," he growls. "I'm sure you think it's hilarious. Well, it's about time you discover what we're _really_ like! Enjoy, Mellifluousness… and _watch your back." _With these words he fades into nothingness again and Flu falls to the ground, breathing heavily.

Wow, I should narrate more often! You can practically _taste _the drama in the air!

_**That wath pwetty impwethive, I mutht admit. You alive, coward?**_

"**Barely!" **she exclaims, leaping to her feet and whipping out her sword, which she points at Loony threateningly. **"Avaunt thee, creepy possessed testificate! Stay back! I'm warning you!" **Hopping backwards, she dashes up the staircase and into the sunlight, collapsing on the grass a safe distance from the entrance to the mine and staring up at the sky.

"**Triston, I think you broke the world. **_**Herobrine's **_**after me now! Did you, like, say his name three times or something? Sacrifice a bunch of chickens, maybe?"**

I know! Isn't it great? Also, he said 'we' – could this mean Israphel as well? Oh, joy!

"**And the worst part is that you're not sarcastic in the slightest. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. I can still feel his claws closing around my neck…" **she shudders, reaching up to touch her throat.

_**Aw, poor you. I sympathise entirely. That is, not at all. I knew it would come down to this sometime, what with all your Herobrine-this and Herobrine-that. Now you're going to die because of it. I'm delighted!**_

"**At least **_**you **_**side with me, don't you, Triston?"**

Actually, no. I find this brilliant! To prove herself worthy of ruling the Overworld, the hero must undergo the greatest of trials, make enemies and allies, slay great beasts and eat pork chops…

"**You know, I really hate you guys sometimes. Also, Mélodieux isn't lisping anymore. Wait, what was that about pork chops?"**

You know you love us.

"**I know I want to grab you by your metaphorical neck and throttle you."**

_**I believe that's called 'tough love'. Either that or 'hilarious'.**_

Oh well. We'll be paying Coldoz a visit next chapter, so you won't have to worry about Herobrine there! Only obscene amounts of endermen and skeletons and possibly freezing to death!

"**Wow. I feel better already, I'm sure," **she says sarcastically.

Triston's booming laugh echoes off the roof of the sky and the distant mountains. I know you do, girl.

Now can I smite things?


	22. The Legend of Coldoz: Day Two and Three

**A/N: Well, here we are, back in Coldoz. Wonderful. Happy Saturday, everybody! This coming week marks the beginning of the HOLIDAYS *ploo-oot* so expect a chapter every two days or so for the next two weeks. YAY! :D There are a couple of pictures of Coldoz on the imgur account, of the exterior and interior of the house as well as that little night scene. Isn't my little box-house beautiful? In case you've forgotten and/or can't be bothered going back to check, the page is -this is an edit gaaargh stupid anti-spam thing! Anyway - and I hope this actually works - the page is **

**TWIWWF**

**.imgur**

**.com**

**Pretty please work?-**

**Don't ask where the tap-dancing thing came from. I was thinking about Irish people, okay? DON'T MOCK PHIL! He'll give me writer's block again. It's all Senturian and his Irishness's fault. Blame him.**

The silence was deafening. My own breathing was thunderous in my ears. My heartbeat could have woken the dead. Eyes wide with fear, I crept further towards the darkness of the cave, torch in hand, ears concentrating intently on any noise, any noise whatsoever. Step by step I slunk forwards, every muscle in my body tense and ready to spring…

"MAAW-AW!"

"ARGH!" I jumped so high in the air my head practically hit the five-block-high ceiling and I fell to the ground again with a sickening _crunch. _Triston and Mélodieux cracked up laughing as I stood again, breathing heavily and incredibly annoyed. Placing a torch on the wall where I had intended to do so, I shook my fist and bellowed something rude at the ceiling of the cave as the beleaguering bovine mooed again.

_Language, Mellifluousness._

"It freaking made me hit the ceiling!" I exclaimed. "Stupid cow! Literally!"

_There's no need to be rude._

"Shut your faciem," I muttered, examining the slightly more lit-up cave before me. Still no footstep noises; was the game even on Easy? "Difficulty, Triston?" I asked.

"**Uh… Peaceful. That might explain it. Want me to change it to Easy?"**

"Yes please," I replied. He did so and I felt an immediate drop in temperature, deciding that perhaps I'd explore the cave later. I had things to do right now.

Coal had been gathered, sheep slaughtered and trees cut down in a most uneventful manner, but I now had a bed and some more stone tools, even a bit of iron and quite an amount of coal. I was currently in the cave just past the lava pool, exiting it through the daunting tunnel that led to the surface… revealing a sky of blue-grey and clouds turning smoky. "It's been a day already?" I cried, surprised.

_Time flies when you're failing badly._

"And when you're succeeding," I countered, sprinting towards my house and dashing inside, past the newly-crafted chest and leaping into bed before drawing the thick purple duvet over myself to ward off the chill tundra winds. I wasn't done yet.

All too soon I awoke again and leapt out of bed, noticing the dirt floor of my house. That would have to be fixed. Heading out into the brisk air, I looked around for some trees; there was an enormous one just next to the lava pool! With some difficulty and a whole lot of dirt pillars, I eventually cut down the entire massive oak and planted a whopping fifteen saplings. At this rate, the barren tundra would soon turn into lush taiga. Heading back to my house, I converted the multitude of logs into an immense amount of planks and fixed the floor and some of the walls. I noticed that I had a few pieces of leather in my inventory, enough, in fact, for a pair of boots! These were quickly crafted and slipped onto my feet; I stood there for a moment, admiring them.

"**I think this calls for a victory dance!" **Triston announced. **"You up for it?"**

"Nether, yeah!" I replied, grinning as he started up a rousing tap-dancing beat. I imagined him materialising as a bluish wispy man, multiple copies of him playing a myriad of instruments. A Smoke-Triston winked at me as there was a momentary lapse in the music and I put my hands on my hips and prepared to dance. The beat leapt into action and I did too, feet flying in all directions and laughter bubbling in my throat. "I'm doing it!" I cried, jigging back and forth across the room. "I'm actually doing it!"

_With about as much grace as someone who can't tap-dance at all._

"Shut up," I protested before falling flat on my face in a manner that would make all tap-dancers everywhere facedesk, leaping to my feet again, bashing against the wall, tripping over the new furnace and ending up in a crumpled heap on the bed as the Smoke-Tristons drew the music to a triumphant finish, bowing together before vanishing in a blue puff of smoke. Mélodieux cackled hysterically from inside my head as I untangled my limbs and stood up again, dusting myself off. "Well, that was fun," I said defensively.

"**I wanna do it again! I've never played so many instruments all at once before. I've never played any instruments before! I've never been more than one person before, either. It was weird. I like it."**

Triston continued to babble about how amazing he was while I considered what to do next. I still had quite a few challenges to complete, like building my house entirely out of mossy cobblestone and finding a pit of doom. Pit of doom, I resolved, wincing at the mere thought of tackling all those dungeons. Triston was still going strong as I headed outside and down to the lava-pool. Okay, Curtisimo had said that if north was the direction I faced when I spawned – I hopped down next to the pool and faced the hill – the entrance was to the southeast… "Never Eat…" I said out loud the first two words of the well-known mnemonic before heading southeast. Right, so… this couldn't be the right direction. There was the ocean! I groaned in annoyance and turned around, investigating a couple of water pools I found as I went. Not here, not here… where was it? The sky was now dark, the crescent moon rising to the peaceful sound of what I thought was _Subwoofer Lullaby, _but I could have been wrong. I didn't really want to be out exploring late at night, so I resolved to find the pit tomorrow. I stopped to take a screenshot of the lovely scene before sprinting back to my house, slamming the door behind me and leaping into bed.

"Goodnight, Minecraft…" I whispered, pulling the covers over me.

"**G'night!"**

_Goodnight, klutz._

"Gee, tha-"

I fell asleep.


	23. Day Thirteen: I'm in Ur Village

**A/N: I still really want to join a server. I went on a server listing site today, saw one that looked interesting… and totally chickened out. XD Chernobylvictim, your server **_**still **_**isn't working… anyone else got any suggestions? I desperately want to play multiplayer. It would probably provide much hilarity for you lot, too. ^.^**

**ANYWAY, still looking for achievements and suggestions and things from you, otherwise I'll run out of things to do. I always love to read your reviews. :D**

**OH. I ALMOST FORGOT. I'm thinking about getting the elemental creepers mod, just to make my life more difficult. I'll finally be able to get a pet creeper, too… unless I mistake the friendly ones for the psychic ones. That would not be pleasant. Maybe you could even suggest some mods (NOT FREAKING THAUMCRAFT) if you have any you'd love to see me freaking out over. Do you guys think I should, or do you prefer me staying Vanilla-flavoured?**

**Mmm, vanilla. Sounds delicious. Short chapter this time, for reasons you're soon to find out…**

"I AM A TIME-LORD!" I bellowed, leaping into existence and holding my sword up triumphantly from where I stood on the side of a wheat field.

…_What?_

"I'm a Time-Lord," I repeated as though it was obvious. "According to Chernobylvictim, anyway. And Chernobylvictim knows all."

_You don't even know anything _about _Time-Lords._

"So?" I asked. "I know that they're from _Doctor Who _and awesome, so that's good enough for me."

…_Riiiight. Sure. Whatever. Live with your delusions._

"I will, thanks," I replied, noticing the golden fields. Almost all the wheat was fully grown; I could make plenty of bread with this. "I'm taking all this wheat," I announced.

_How courteous of you._

"I know, right?" Methodically I harvested the wheat, taking the inner row and then the outer row before planting the seeds again. I had acquired nearly a full stack before…

_The sun's going down._

"WHAT?" I looked up in surprise; indeed, the western horizon was tinted orange, the sun sinking low behind it. "Oh, great," I moaned, finishing off the field quickly before dashing back to my house and leaping into bed.

Morning came and wiped away the fog of sleep. I returned to the fields and completed my harvest, ending up with three full stacks and a twenty-five of wheat! A bountiful harvest, I was sure. It was as I replanted the final shoots that I saw something magical in a nearby basin. "Iron!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet and dashing over to harvest it. How convenient! Heading back to my house to smelt it, I backtracked a few steps and ended up at the front door of the church. Out of sheer curiosity I looked inside; the priest wasn't home and there was only the altar there, rather pretty with my texture pack. Giving a little huff of amusement, I walked in and knelt before the altar, clasping my hands together. I gave another little laugh. "Uh, let's see… dear Notch, please make One Point Three come soon." I sniggered at the idiocy of what I was doing before I had an epiphany. "Oh yeah, and make Herobrine go get a life. One that's not mine, that is. Er, amen," I added, feeling like a total imbecile.

_That's because you are_ _a total imbecile._

"Supportive as usual," I noted, standing up and dusting myself off. Where were all the testificates, I wondered? Maybe it was time to go look for them. I scrambled up the ladder and quickly checked the upper floors; Reverend Gaston was nowhere to be seen. Down again and out the door, to the next house along the street… no-one there… the next house was empty… the next one also… and as tragic midday music played as though reflecting my despair, one by one I busted the doors of the houses open to find them empty, empty, empty, EMPTY! "Reverend? Bob? G… _Gregory?" _I asked pitifully, smashing open the door of the final house to find it completely and utterly _empty. _I sank to my knees in the doorway, staring at the back wall disbelievingly. The testificates had all gone! They'd all gone somewhere and left me behind!

_Oh, poor you. Cry me a river._

"I would," I muttered, "but you'd freeze it with your icy heart." I was completely alone here. Completely alone. Head hung, I trudged back to my house and opened the door half-heartedly, pickaxe loose in my hand. How totally depressing this was. Something, however, made me raise my eyes to the back wall… and I gaped at what I saw. Two signs, one on either side of the ladder, read as follows:

**I'm in ur  
>village<br>Kidnapping ur  
>testificates<strong>

**Want to see  
>them again?<br>Sucks to be you**

**-H**

Mélodieux and Triston burst into hysterics. I just gaped.

"**HAHAHAHA!" **Triston guffawed. **"Well, hahaha, he didn't just get **_**a **_**life… he got the whole village!" **He and Mélodieux set to laughing even harder. I just gaped. After what seemed like eternity, my speech returned.

"I JUST GOT TROLLED BY HEROBRINE," I said flatly. The two products of my slight schizophrenia cracked up.

"TROLLED. BY HEROBRINE," I repeated. "WHAT THE HECK."

_Looks like it's time to mount a rescue mission. Oh, the look on your face… BWAHAHAHA!_

I just nodded dumbly, turning around and heading out the door. I stood in the street, staring at the house opposite, struck dumb by this absurd occurrence.

It was time to mount a rescue mission alright… just where to?

I had a horrible feeling I knew _exactly _where I had to go…


	24. Day Fourteen: Time to Mine

**A/N: Well, now that we've established that Herobrine is the trolling-est troll to have ever lived, it's time to go save some villagers. Wahoo… **

**Elemental Creepers is installed and working like a charm! Unfortunately, I'm an idiot and there's been a bit of an, er, **_**mishap. **_**You know how some mods can work together just fine? Well, it turns out that the Enderbro mod and Elemental Creepers don't agree with each other despite my precautions and the game black-screened. Not a tragedy, I know, I **_**should **_**have just been able to use the backup I'd prepared and play the game without the mods but, as I have said, I'm an idiot. I tried to put the backup folder in the appdata folder-y thing, which meant it renamed it 'copy of .minecraft' and I couldn't rename it to '.minecraft', but by that time I had already renamed the actual folder 'not minecraft' and couldn't change it back. I'm an idiot. Now, I **_**could **_**have just grabbed the save files I wanted and put them in the new .minecraft folder, but you know what I did? The only thing I salvaged was TWIWWF III before I deleted the 'not minecraft' folder.**

**To summarise: I'm an idiot and Coldoz is gone. No matter, though, it's not like I got very far and it'll be easy enough to build a cuboid wooden house and get some tools on that seed. :P The series is far from called off.**

**That 'time to mine' scene will be drawn and put on DeviantART. This I swear.**

**NOW TO RESUME.**

Like an endergirl on a mission I marched back into my house and set to dividing up my great multitude of wheat into a full stack of bread and some of the plant still left over. I could practically hear the dramatic montage background music playing as the sky darkened and I dived into bed to quickly sleep the night away. Suddenly and uneventfully it was morning once more and I slid some coal and my fifteen iron into the furnace, watching it burn solemnly and with an incredibly serious frown on my face. Moody brightness made everything just that much dramatically darker and the default textures had never looked so grave. Soon all the leftover seeds and wheat were back in the chest and I had in my possession an iron sword, shovel and pickaxe as well as boots and a helmet. I grabbed some spare blocks – namely seventeen dirt – from my chest and headed outside before slipping on the boots and placing the helm reverently on my head.

"**What are we going to do now, Mellifluousness?" **Triston asked worriedly.

"It's simple, Triston," I replied gravely.

"It's time to MINE," I declared, holding my pickaxe high in the air and keeping it there as ominous thunder rolled in the distance and lightning flashed dramatically behind me, illuminating my hand and giving the scene an air of incredible melodrama.

_Oh, get over it._

"Yeah, it's about time we stopped being so serious," I resolved. The sky cleared huffily as though to say _well _fine _then, take away my moment of drama, why don't you. _I grinned at this and trotted down the street towards the mine, the clouds and distant forest rather pretty under the influence of Fancy graphics. I hadn't been able to use them before because they had made the game lag so, but now they worked perfectly! It was totally inexplicable. Lose all your saves, gain beautiful graphics. Soon I was past Loony's Passage and Herbe Pont and peering over the edge into Klutz's Demise, all the way down into the darkness deep beneath the surface… everything was some much dimmer under this low brightness, a little bit scary, even. The heat of the lava, even a few blocks away as it was, threatened to cook my heat in my helmet and for once I was grateful for the cold blood that came with the skin. Suddenly I could have sworn a sneering face was visible in the flowing magma and I gave a cry of surprise, skittering backwards and away from it.

_It's only lava, fool. Soon you'll be jumping and screaming "Herobrine!" whenever a zombie growls. Oh wait, you _already _do that._

Grumbling my annoyance I quickly made a small staircase down to the mineshaft two or so levels down and to the right of the lava fall. Listening carefully for any monsters coming down the dark hallway, I collected some iron with my shoulders tensed, every fibre of me waiting for something – Herobrine – to leapt out and eat my face. Suddenly bones clanked and footsteps sounded and my head jerked up in surprise to see a skeleton sprinting down the shaft, grinning his skeletal grin as I leapt up out of the pit and prepared for battle valiantly by hiding behind a nearby pillar and hoping desperately that he would get bored and go away. Suffice to say, he didn't. A grinning skull and empty eyes lined up with mine and my mouth formed an O of horror…

So I shoved my sword in his face.

It was _very _satisfying.

I withdrew the blade from his bones with a faint _shing _and he fell into the pit with a _crack _of bone against rock. I hopped down into it and stared at his motionless body for a moment before nudging him in the ribs with my iron-clad foot. With that, he was dust.

_How bizarre._

"How _convenient," _I retorted in a whisper lest I awoke the Balrog or something equally horrible, collecting the last of the iron before exiting the pit again and heading back towards Klutz's Demise. Taking out the small bit of cobblestone I had gathered while harvesting the iron, I made a quick bridge between a couple of stone outcroppings and headed across. More like crept, with the lava fall on my left, stone on my right and a dark mineshaft visible ahead and directed towards Klutz's Demise. Coming into range, I placed a torch on the wall and breathed as the dark was illuminated, no monsters in sight but with coal on the wall. After whacking a cobweb out of the way I snatched the coal from the wall and checked to make sure that to the right was a dead end. This was confirmed and I turned left again, creeping down the dim hallway with my sword tight in my hand…

A creeper rounded the corner and I stopped dead until it turned around again and disappeared. Riiight. This could be dangerous. For some reason the thought of the Void and death was a lot more intimidating now… maybe because I wondered whether I'd even _go _to the Void or not, what with Herobrine messing with the world and all. With shaking hands I placed a torch on the wall and took another fearful step forward. It was then that the creeper came back and spun around, myself just out of its view but perfectly capable of seeing its terrifyingly grotesque upside-down face…

I practically threw myself against the wall as the monstrosity disappeared again. Breathing heavily, I waited until the sound of the thing's footsteps faded into oblivion before I even thought again.

_Well, wasn't that lovely?_

SHUT. UP.

_That's what you get when you download mods._

Quiet, you.

_You've only got yourself to blame. Any achievements ready, Triston?_

"**Hmm, let me think… ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Need a Change of Pants'," **he said happily.

"Oh, shut up…" I moaned. This wasn't helping my Herobrine problems one bit.

_You kidding? A creeper a day keeps the baddies away._

With logic like that, I'll be dead in under a week…


	25. Day Fifteen: Girl's Best Friend

**A/N: Wai hello dere. You lot look awful familiar. Do I know you? I haven't been here in a while, so my memory's a little fuzzy…**

**In all ****seriousness**** silliness, I'm BACK and I'm STRONGER than ever! That's a reference. You better get it. Or else. Yeaaaah… Sorry for the wait, guys; I was trying to set up a lovely surprise that I could announce this chapter but life, the universe and everything hates me and I've kind of given up. I'll keep trying (sort of), but I'll make an effort to publish in the meantime. So there. Also, happy One Point Three Point One! Woohoo! Due to the update I won't be using a texture pack (was I before? O.o) and I won't even **_**try **_**to make Elemental Creepers work, so we're back to boring old Vanilla. Delicious. :D This makes things a whole lot easier for me, anyway. SO. **

**Also, this chapter contains LINE BREAKS. Haven't seen those in a while. Like, since chapter one. Ahahahahaha…**

**NOW IT BEGINS!**

Loading world… building terrain…

_WHAT._

"**What?"**

"WHAAAAT?" I cried, looking around in shock. Surrounding me was not the darkness of the mine shaft or the cold of underground; no, the sun was warm on my face and the grass whispered in the light breeze and newly-retextured gravel shifted under my feet from where I stood just outside my house on one of the streets of Ir Qas. Mouth agape, I shuffled about a few steps and moved so that I could see past my house; the sun was setting, the sky tangerine.

_Okay, fool, WHAT DID YOU DO?_

I jabbered inarticulately in reply, gesticulating wildly at the sun, the street, the sky, _everything _for want of something better to say. Giving up with a groan of annoyance, I set off for the mine at a sprint and stopped just before I descended its steps, checking my inventory. No armour but a crap-tonne of wheat… hadn't I turned all that into bread? Triston quickly checked the last chapter and found out it was so.

"It's totally Herobrine," I concluded, dashing back into my house and slamming the door. Immersing myself up to the waist in the depths of the double-chest, I found that indeed, the iron ore was still in there. Growling in annoyance as I noted the darkening sky, I slammed the ore in the furnace with three pieces of coal and set to dividing up the wheat into bread. A full stack and nine seemed a _little _excessive, so I halved that and halved it again, leaving myself with twenty. Withdrawing some iron from the furnace, I giggled in surprise as the warm and tickly feeling of experience orbs jingled and jangled around me. This update was great. Just enough for a helmet. I'd wait for four more for the boots, I decided, fiddling around with inventories and chests until they were done. Patient as I am (not), I couldn't wait any longer for enough for some pants so I leapt into bed and restless sleep.

_Restless? This is Minecraft. You sleep like a log._

Shut up. After slipping on the helmet and boots and putting away a near-broken stone axe I dashed outside again to the smell of burning, gagging as noxious fumes entered my nostrils.

_What do you think I have to put up with all the time?_

"**Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh!" **Triston laughed as I gaped at the air. **"You just got burned! ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Absolutely-"**

"Yeah, yeah, I _get _it!" I fumed. They both burst out laughing at the irony of that description and I growled. "For your information, I am _not _noxious. _You two _are the ones made of _smoke."_

_Ouch. That hurts, you know. Or it would if you… uh… if you… damnaret…_

"Ha-ha!" I crowed triumphantly. "Unable to come up with a snarky comeback for once, are you?"

_Says the girl who couldn't come up with a snarky comeback to save her own life._

"I can come up with _Latin, _so I beat you any day!"

_Not without the help of Google Translate._

"Uh…" I faltered. "Shut up…"

And, still arguing with the products of my slight schizophrenia, I descended the stairs into the bowels of the Overworld.

%-%

Two pinpoints of luminescent white stared out at me from the darkness of the mine shaft. It's just a cobweb… just a cobweb… I snuck forward at a crouch, torch in hand until I very carefully slid it onto the wall.

I breathed.

It was just a cobweb.

"_This time."_

"HOLYNETHE-"

%-%

Down another passage I crept, still not daring to breathe…

"Brrd-rrd!"

For a second I froze before I relaxed with a laugh. A few steps forward revealed the lanky black creature to be standing just off this shaft, the entrance near-blocked with gravel. "Hello, Frienderman," I greeted him happily. He gave a friendly warble in reply, looking me up and down and deciding I wasn't a threat. Music began to play and made me relax further; near-fearless now, I bid the enderman farewell and strode down the passage confidently.

Until cave noise screamed in my ears and I was clinging to the ceiling in terror.

_Fearless, I see._

Shut up.

%-%

I gaped at the drop below me; through a hole in the floor a ravine seemingly a thousand blocks deep plummeted down into oblivion, filled with a pulsing mix of water and lava and steam.

_You going to continue or shall I materialise and push you in?_

With a yelp I jumped out of the way and she laughed maniacally.

"You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

_Oh, not at all._

I sighed in relief.

_Depending on how annoying you are._

%-%

And that is the story of how I ended up somewhere deep underground, almost definitely lost, the explosion holes of creepers littering the ground around me, a good few bits of gold in my bag and an iron pickaxe and sword in hand. A furnace burned hotly to the side of me, smelting more iron, and a crafting table sat just behind me. These were the second versions, seeing as the first two had been quite happily blown up by a passing creeper who had just wanted to say 'hi'. Or maybe "That'ssss a very niccce underground basssse you've got there… it would be a sssshame if ssomething were to happen to it…"

Torches flicked and fluttered, shedding odd and creepy shadows on the walls of the cave that danced and dived and grinned their shadowy grins. I shuddered and made the odd jabbering noise that I do when I'm creeped out.

Deciding I'd waited long enough, I dismantled my tiny base and continued into the darkness.

A couple of explosions later I was standing in a great open cavern, redstone sparkling and odd rock formations poking from floor and ceiling. Sighting lava down one cave, I decided to head there and soon I was leaning over the great boiling pools of the stuff…

And then I saw it.

Right next to me.

A look of elated surprise passed over my face.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'DIAMONDS!'"**


	26. Day Sixteen: A Diamond to Pick With You

**A/N: Did the week fly past or is it just me? Time is relative, so for some it might have dragged on. I dunno. Happy Saturday, even if I took until one thirty to write this and six twenty-five to finish… :P**

**Oh dear, I clicked 'update' to One Point Three Point Two, realised I wouldn't be able to go on servers, closed it mid-download, started it up again and it wouldn't get past 'done loading'. :( I am now One Point Three Point Two and unable to go on servers. DARN IT, NOOOOOTCH! **

**Oh, and BEFORE I FORGET there's a YouTube channel you need to check out. Yes, YOU. *points emphatically* Look up the channel of InvaderMEEN sometime if you want to see a very funny commentator, his very funny friend and occasionally his hilarious sister. He doesn't have enough views and it annoys me greatly because he's very good, so do check him out sometime. :D**

**My mother made banana fritters and they were delicious. Just thought I'd share. I'm not schizophrenic, what are you talking about? *inches away slowly, looking shady***

"_Diamonds!" _I exclaimed – okay, more like squeaked – joyously, eyes glittering. My first instinct was to smash my pick as hard as possible into the ore block, shattering it in one blow, but at the warning of Mélodieux I forced myself to be patient and build a safety-bridge beneath the precious material to rescue it from the hot and hungry jaws of the lava barely three blocks below. Like an archaeologist who had discovered the most incredibly rare, fragile and precious artefact the world had ever seen I began to cautiously chip away at the cyan ore, careful not to scratch its beautiful and pristine surface…

_HURRY UP ALREADY!_

With a yelp of surprise I struck the block hard enough to burst it in one go and with a resounding _clang _the pickaxe bounced back and hit me in the chin, causing an explosion of pain and blood which was shortly stemmed by rock dust. My first thought was the glittering gem that was now soaring through the air, however, and I scrambled to retrieve it before its graceful trajectory sent it straight into the lava. Once safely in my claws the diamond disappeared into my backpack and I sighed in relief.

_I suppose you're not hurt anymore, then._

"Hurt? Oh, cra-" I began before the sentence dissolved into a hideous scream and I hopped about for a while, clutching my chin and cursing Minecrafters' ability to not notice pain for a time. Mélodieux just laughed sadistically as blood seeped through my fingers and stained my flying hair.

What felt like about two hours of pain later Mélodieux's laughter had faded into silence and the other three diamonds had entered my backpack. _Diamonds! _My grimace turned into a grin again, cheered as I was by the lovely things.

A few caves later I stood at the foot of a ravine that stretched so high it exceeded render distance, lava and water coating its floor. I decided that I'd had enough cave-exploring for one day, turning around and marching back down the tunnel that had led me to it. Back in the great wide cavern, I suddenly wondered if I had a crafting table _with _me and slung my back from my shoulders to see.

I grinned.

_Well, isn't that just convenient._

In the most incredibly boss-like way imaginable I took the table from my bag and tossed it against a small stalagmite, letting it bounce off the rock and grow to full size. A few strides brought me to it.

Two sticks.

Three diamonds.

I set them in the squares and, with a flash of light, they bonded together to form…

A _diamond pickaxe._

Reverently I lifted it from the crafting table and took it in my hands; it was massive, ridiculously heavy, its handle long and beautifully carved, its head as thick as my arm and gorgeous turquoise.

_Wow. That looks pretty impressive._

"_Awwwww yeaaaaaah!" _I yelled, breaking out of my trance to swing it around in a graceful pirouette, watching it catch the light of the torches and _gleam _like only diamond could. I had done it! I had a diamond pickaxe!

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'A Diamond to Pick With You!'"**

"Oh, that is so cheesy it's awesome," I laughed, resting the pick's heavy head in my hand. _Perfect. _Noticing some iron to my left with a glint in my eye and a grin on my face, I took the thing in both hands and spun around to _smash _the block into dust and ore in one fell swoop! My arms ached already but I barely noticed, destroying the other ore block and retrieving my prize. "Haha!" I cackled, brandishing my newest tool high in the air. Oh, the glory of it! Oh, the triumph!

_Oh, the testificates stuck somewhere horrible! Get the bloody obsidian already. We don't have all day._

Actually, we do have all day. I can take however long I bloody well want to. Procrastination is, after all, my middle name.

_Wouldn't that make you… Mellifluousness… Procrastination… Abberance?_

"Nether, yes!" I punched the air for emphasis, looking around for a suitable lava-filled alcove. That one looked promising; I marched over and peered inside. With another goofy smile I noticed the bubbling molten rock that had combined with icy groundwater to form the second hardest material on the Overworld…

Purple-black obsidian.

"**I'll find a few bricks…"**

"Where the two of these mix…"

"**With a couple of clicks…"**

There was a pause.

"I**'**l**l** b**e **s**w**i**n**g**i**n**g **m**y **p**i**c**k**!**" **we sang together, myself breaking into a dance. I could practically _hear _Mélodieux rolling her eyes. Without further ado I leapt down and dismantled the odd dirt structure I had built there before – this was where I had found the diamonds – before taking the handle in both my hands again, raising it high… and bringing it _crashing _down on the rock.

It barely left a dent.

_Fifteen seconds for each block…_

Shut up. I soon settled again into that easy rhythm of mining, though it wasn't so easy with the massive great diamond pick and before long my arms were aching again.

_And I thought Minecrafters were _strong_. Seems you're just the exception to the rule._

Charming. Ten blocks is the magical total… that song certainly made it easy to remember, but I felt that I needed a _proper _portal. Ten blocks plus the corners… that made fourteen blocks. Mélodieux muttered something about incredible mathematics skill and I ignored her, too concentrated on the task of breaking the ridiculously tough blocks. Finally I had collected all there were in that place; _twelve! _Only twelve! How cheap!

_Well, go get some more then, idiot._

And so I set off on a not-very-epic quest not too far through the depths of the earth, and in quite a wide tunnel filled with lava a waterfall turned some of it to blessed obsidian. With my diamond pick I dug a thin pathway around a corner to reach it and prepared to fight the current to the source block, which I planned to quickly destroy…

But as I rounded the corner white eyes filled my vision and crystalline smoke hardly had a chance to choke me before rough hands connected with my chest and sent me flying backwards, the words _"Not so fast!" _and a maniacal cackle accompanying me into the roiling depths of the magma as my hair burnt to cinders and my scales twisted and warped, my eyes melting in my skull and my bones disintegrating beneath my skin, hypersensitive to every _moment _of the pain…

YOU DIED.

I sighed in relief in the cool of the Void, my scales slowly reverting to their original positions and silky purple hair sprouted from my head, my now rather useless sight returning as I forced breath in and out, in and out of my healing lungs…

_My goodness, did you _see _that? You were just completely…_

She sniggered.

_Burned!_

Triston burst out laughing. "Har, har, har," I snarled sarcastically. Mélodieux appeared in a burst of pink smoke, winked viciously and disappeared again. I waved tendrils of fuchsia away, coughing.

"**So, uh," **Triston began, still guffawing, **"Should I respawn you?"**

I stared into the nothingness and gritted my teeth. You know what?

"Yes."

**RESPAWNING…**


	27. Day Seventeen: SlashGiving Generously

**A/N: Ahahahaha. Ha. Ha. There's a reason I didn't update on Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday. Or until late tonight. It's a very good reason. It's an exciting story, too. I just… can't think of it… right now…**

**Note to self: do not punch spiders in the eye. Ick. **

**Yeah.**

**Enjoy.**

Tender feet settled on the cobblestone floor and screamed for a second before the nerves realised that they were not, in fact, on fire. My fists fell to my sides and clenched as I gritted my teeth, staring furiously at the door as though it was all its fault that I had been pushed into lava by Herobrine. That door. It was a real troublemaking door, that door. I had never trusted it. Never before had a door looked so suspicious. It was a shady, shady door, that door.

_As though we hadn't already gathered that from the entire paragraph you spent saying how suspicious it was._

"Shut. Up," I growled, hardly in the mood. All that work had amounted to nothing. Well, I had a plan and Mélodieux would hate it. That made it all the more delightful. A spider screeched outside and I frowned.

"Triston." It was probably the first time I'd ever really _ordered _him to do something, but it felt good to hear him perk up, surprised. "Pull up the Minecraft wiki. Search for 'pickaxe'."

"**Pickaxe…?"**

"Pickaxe."

"**Okay…" **

"Tell me the data value thingy," I said suddenly and Mélodieux's metaphorical eyes narrowed suspiciously. A spider screeched outside.

_Well-versed in technical terms as ever, I see. What are you planning?_

"Nothing," I retorted innocently as Triston made a pleased sound. A spider screeched outside.

"**Here it is! Wood: two hundred and seventy, stone: two hundred and seventy-four, iron: two hundred and fifty-seven, gold: two hundred and eighty-five, diamond: two hundred and seventy-eight."**

"Perfect." I grinned. This was going to work!

"_/give Mellifluousness 278 1," _I commanded, voice taking on an echoing quality as my eyes began to glow and the fingers on my right hand spread out a little, making room for the diamond pick that was soon to appear in a flash of light…

There was the flash of light.

It was shortly followed by a sound a little like a disheartened _plart._

My eyes lost their glow and I blinked in surprise, flexing my empty fingers.

"_You do not have permission to use that command," _an angry red voice hissed in my ear, causing me to yelp and jump.

A spider screeched outside.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled, smashing my fist against the wall, eyes blazing in frustration. The thing shut up. _Finally. _Really, after all that, it didn't even _work? _

_This world wasn't made in One Point Three, fool. You should've known that this would never work._

I sagged. I would have to reacquire diamonds and I would have to do it _legitimately. _I couldn't cheat. I couldn't cheat. I would have to start _all over again._

"Schee-oo!"

I was _really _sick of that spider. Where was it? I peered up the ladder, but it wasn't scrabbling to get inside so I ascended cautiously. Stepping onto the wooden roof, I looked around…

"SCHEER!" The thing practically screamed in my ear as it leapt out of nowhere and tackled me, pinning me to the ground and preparing to take a bite out of my throat. I was about to draw my sword when I realised I didn't have it anymore and it was going to kill me again crap this wasn't good

_You're an idiot._

"Schee!" the spider cried as clasped fuchsia fists were brought down heavily on its head and it whipped around to face its floating attacker. Mélodieux, in the smoke, hovered lazily on her side above it, arms crossed and face apathetic, long hair waving gently out behind her.

"You… _helped _me?" I asked, surprised. Her gaze flicked to me.

_Nah. You're on your own. I heard she's tasty, spider._

Her misty mouth didn't even open as she spoke and she vanished in a puff of cerise. The spider stared at where she had been for a moment and I began to inch away, hoping that it had forgotten about me…

It turned its head to face me, eyes bright.

It hadn't forgotten.

Crap.

And so followed a fist fight between a giant glow-eyed spider and an endergirl on a rooftop in the middle of the night. I bet I've done stranger. I threw often pathetic punches as it slashed and swiped and shrieked and bit before finally my fist made contact with one of its eyes and went in with a sickening _squelch. _And went in. And went in. And went in. Suddenly my arm was embedded up to the elbow in hot, sticky, stingy spider-eye goo. And possibly the weird stuff they have in their heads.

The spider abruptly sagged and the full weight of it rested on my arm. The muscles screamed. I did too before ripping my hand out and letting the thing slump to the ground with a dull _thud_.

_Clap. Clap. Clap._

She was somehow pronouncing the word and making the noise at the same time despite her lack of hands. I looked at my arm and cringed at the glowing red goo covering it. How it _stung, _too; that must have been the effects of the poison. Which didn't really make sense, seeing as poison had to be _consumed _before it worked…

_Congratulations. You have now discovered the most inefficient, disgusting and painful way to kill a spider. That should be an achievement, I swear._

Teeth bared in disgust, I shook my arm in a vain effort to shake off the crimson gunk. A couple of droplets plopped to the ground, but the majority of it stuck firmly to my arm. Lovely. Well, wasn't this just amazing? Not even my arm had gone unharmed. I had been cursed by Herobrine, I was sure.

_As though that wasn't obvious._

I opened my mouth to say something and shut it again, sliding down the ladder and into bed. Maybe everything would look better in the morning…

%-%

"**Doo-doo, doo-doo doo, doodie-doodie-doodie doo-doo…"**

My eyes opened blearily. "_Why, _Triston…?" I moaned, not wanting to wake up.

"**Diamonds don't mine themselves!" **he said cheerily. I turned over and groaned again. How I wished…

Finally I managed to drag myself out of bed and out the door. I didn't want to look in the chest just yet. Instead I trudged down the gravel road, made my way past the well and into the church. Slowly I went up the ladder and emerged onto the castellated roof, leaning on one of the protrusions and sighing heavily as I crossed my arms. For a moment I just stared out at the not-too-distant forest, lost in rather downhearted thought, before my eyes flicked to something closer: the library across the street and to the right. Gregory's building. I remembered the time when I had first come to the village and released him from it, breaking the gravel that had obstructed the door. I hadn't even bothered to record that scene, but it held great weight with me now. I sighed again.

Suddenly I found myself pacing the battlements with my hands clasped behind my back and my shoulders hunched, stepping from one to the other to the next to the next… I couldn't just sit here. I had to get to work again. But it would be so _much _work… urgh…

And then there was no cobble beneath my feet and my eyes widened and my hair billowed and my body went horizontal before my face made very close, sudden contact with the ground and I was lying prone for what had to be the gazillionth time amongst the grass. For a second I just lay there, frozen in shock. All was silent.

Until a muffled scream made sheep in the taiga raise their heads.

_Off to a good start already, I see._


	28. Day Eighteen: In the Jungle

**A/N: DARN IT, CDEEEEEEEEEEEER! You're far too much fun to play Minecraft with and make me lose track of time until it's ten o' clock at night and I still haven't updated. Blame him, everybody. Blame him. And then it's Sunday. FFFFFFF**

**I'm so stuck on **_**Ears to Hear Us **_**it's not even funny. Not. Even. Funny. Thanks to Gamechap (the fanficcer, not the YouTuber) for persuading me to update this.**

**Also, I forgot to say last time but I'm using a texture pack again. The Old Faithful 32x32 pack makes all the default textures all pretty and HD. I love it. :D**

**Herobrine. DAMNAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ET**

A light breeze sweeps past and stirs the grass on these unfamiliar plains, making it whisper and murmur and tickle the face of the dark form lying immersed in it on a green hillock. Frowning at the sky, she blows it away absently and speaks thusly:

"**Give me the narration back, Triston."**

Fine, fine…

_I, _Mellifluousness, glared. Not _at_ anything in particular, just glared. "This sucks," I announced.

_No kidding. Wait, where the Nether are we…?_

"I'm going on holiday," I informed her as a rebellious strand of hair leapt up to tell its opinion to my face. I shoved it away. "I heard there's a jungle this way and I want to see a temple. I'll make it my holiday home and stay there for a while. Maybe I'll get lucky and find diamonds."

_Ah. That would make sense, I suppose, if there _were _any jungles in the area and if you had a compass with you. Thing is, there aren't, you don't and you're completely lost._

"Shut up," I retorted, but a little hesitantly. I had set off from the village at dawn equipped with stone tools (and an iron sword, mind you), some torches, food, a crafting table and some wood, heading in the direction of the church. I had thought I wouldn't have to walk far.

I had been wrong.

"It has to be _somewhere _around here," I said despairingly, getting to my feet and looking around. Slow as my computer is, things took a while to render but soon I found I was framed on all sides by dense oak forest, taiga treetops just visible to the northwest, jungle to the south but-

I stopped.

Jungle to the south.

I burst out laughing.

_It's barely three chunks away! How did you _not _notice that?_

With great ease, Mélodieux. Just over a, say, five-block-high hill trees like alien towers raised joyous branches to the heavens and the sickly-sweet smell of the rainforest was brought to me by the east wind. Still laughing, I broke into a sprint and dashed down the hill, stumbling a bit as my ankle screamed at me but not caring because it was _jungle _and there were more hills but it was _jungle _and I was stupidly happy but it was _jungle! _Leaping onto a big bush and then a small tree, I flung my arms wide and breathed in the greenness and the life of it as the trees seemed to burst into raucous applause with the wind, welcoming me into their lush embrace. Jungles. Lovely things. A few cautious steps forward brought me to the edge of the leaves and I peered into the river winding past below; a gentle flow and two blocks deep. Perfect! I took a few steps backwards, grinning so I was sure I'd split my face in two, before dashing forwards, misjudging the distance, jumping too early and spiralling downwards with my hair flying and my arms flailing until I hit the water with my stomach and caused a _splash _to shake the trees. Surfacing again totally drenched, I spat some water out and grimaced. Okay, not the best start…

_A jump made with all the grace of a zombie doing gymnastics._

"Thanks," I said sarcastically, climbing out of the water and shaking myself off like a wolf. Unfortunately it sure didn't work like it did for wolves and I remained drenched with cool jungle water. My usually shortfringe had drawn itself out like elastic and plastered itself over my eyes; it felt like looking through a pumpkin. Light magenta locks had become sodden and near violet.

_You look absolutely ridiculous. As though that changes anything._

My only response was to strike a pose for invisible cameras before tightening my grip on my sword and losing myself in the greenery, weaving and dodging between vines like strands of hair and bushes that cushioned my feet. I skirted water pools and leapt up the sides of hills, balancing precariously on the edges of drops and dancing beneath the spreading boughs of the trees. As I scrambled out of a dip I blinked in the growing darkness, eyes widening as I realised what that meant. I needed to find that temple soon. But then an odd mix of green and grey caught my eye and dragged my head around…

I burst out laughing.

_WHAT? How did you-?_

"Like a _boss, _that's how!" I proclaimed, punching the air triumphantly.

_But what-?_

"A jungle temple, that's _what!" _I laughed, breaking into a sprint and galloping through the greenery to the moss-covered thing. It lay on the other side of a great pit that I carefully made my way around, skirting the trees that reached over to block my way until I reached a small hole in the wall and crawled through. I coughed and hacked as clouds of dust were stirred up, the strong smell of mould and must filling the air. Surveying the room, however, I decided it was quite nice; creepers (the leafy kind, sheesh) and mosses invaded cracks in the cobblestone, vines encroaching through the small, glassless windows. In the centre was the great staircase – I had entered from the upper floor – and on the side opposite the stairs themselves was an odd little altar-like protrusion. I decided there was no point exploring it in the dark of night and sat down against the altar-thing, shuddering as cave noise whined but feeling my eyes droop closed…

Goodnight, Minecraft… Notch, I haven't said that in a while…

_Goodnight, idiot._

Hey, tha-

"**I feel left out!"**

_Well then. Goodnight, idiots._

"**Goodnight!"**

Goodnight… wait, you little-


	29. Day Nineteen: Tomb Raider

**A/N: Well, here we are again, Internet! If you read this, Senturian (I'm not actually sure :P) then happy birthday again, 'cause this'n's for you. :D **

**Also, I'm in the process of making a custom texture pack! Woohoo! I've had Pirate Speak enabled for a day or so now and it's given me an urge to make a texture pack based on that. So far I've done 'hatchets' and I'm working on 'cutlasses', but it's rather difficult and there's a whole lot to change, so it'll take me a while. It's great fun, though.**

**Also, anything you say to me can and will be written about as you will find in this chapter. MWAHAHAHA. You know I love you, reviewers. **

**Why hello there, rain. I think the rain is trying to say hello to you all. By shouting across the ocean. Shut up, rain. They probably hear you. And now it's gone and everything's dripping. That's New Zealand weather for you.**

**Except for one of you. I forgot about this before, but I've gotten my first flame! I think this is some kind of milestone. If you're still reading, Daz, (though I doubt it) I'll have you know that I don't really care whether this is funny or not; it's written to amuse me, and the fact that it amuses my readers is just a bonus. So yeah. If you don't like it, don't read it.**

**As for the rest of you, ENJOY!**

"Something bad is going to happen. I know it. You give a short, peaceful and a little unsatisfying chapter and then you wake up and something tries to kill you, right?"

I yelped in surprise, jerking out of sleep to see a block-high owl perched in the window opposite me. It – she – cocked her head and ruffled her wings, looking annoyed.

"Nyroc! What are you doing here?" I cried, still a little fuzzy-headed. Nyroc128 huffed and fluttered her wings again.

"Reviewing," she said simply, turning around and soaring off into the night.I stared after her for a moment, watching her disappear between the trees, before sticking my finger in my ear and twisting it back and forth a few times. This done, I held it up to inspect it; no brain-juices visible. So my brain _wasn't _leaking out my ears. How strange.

_I'm going to try to keep my sanity and refrain from saying anything about that._

Good idea. Wait, it was still _night? _I had barely slept a wink! Blasted Minecrafters' inability to sleep without a bed… I decided now would be as good a time as ever to explore downstairs, so I made my way around the altar and descended the staircase.

Or, more correctly, stopped at the top of a staircase as a cow stared up at me.

"Maaw-aw," it informed me, turning to stare at a wall.

I checked for brain-juices again.

Slightly apprehensive of monsters and placing torches either side of the main entrance to the place, I began to inch down the second staircase and creep down the tunnel into the treasure hallway. I was terrified of activating the tripwire or getting blown up by a creeper or, I don't know, summoning the freaking Wither King or something…

But there was the triad of levers mounted on the wall, and I remembered from the Yogscast's snapshot video that the one closest to the wall had to be pulled first. With a grunt of exertion – the thing was old and rusty – I yanked it downwards and headed back up the stairs, looking for the entrance to the treasure room. Nothing. I returned downstairs and, after some contemplation, pulled the lever closest to the staircase and went back up to check. Nothing. I pulled the middle lever. Nothing.

_Just break the stone already._

I broke the stone already, lying flat on my stomach to reach the chest that lay hidden in the small compartment under the floor. Two pieces o' eight, – er, emeralds – thirty-two putrid rations, – _rotten flesh, _that is – seven gold bullions – oh, _ingots – _and four limbs. Bones. Shut up. Pirate Speak is contagious.

_Get vaccinated today. Free with any of the Aether's doctors._

A respectable haul, I thought, ignoring her. Now to retrieve the loot from the other chest; this would be more difficult. I descended the stairs for what had to be the fortieth time and turned left, beginning to creep down the vine-hung corridor, so tense I thought I would explode…

_HEROBRINE!_

I screamed loud enough to wake the dead and jumped sideways into the wall before leaping forward and landing flat on the tripwire, hearing that _click _of activation before an arrow went whizzing over my head. Mélodieux, the sadistic sod, burst out laughing and Triston added his guffaws to the mix as I propped myself up on my elbows, snapping the tripwire and muttering under my breath as another arrow flew past overhead. "That was _not _funny!" I yelled, getting to my feet and dusting myself off.

_Oh, you sure? I'd have to disaHEROBRINE!_

I didn't jump that time, instead just glaring at thin air and she huffed.

_Fine, then. Get your stupid treasure already._

I obliged, wary of the dispenser above the chest. Nothing too extravagant, just some more gold bullions and a few limbs, but I took it all and, cheap as I am, the tripwires, hooks and arrows from the dispensers, too before heading back upstairs. Seemingly announcing my victory, pleasant, bouncy music began to plink and plonk in my ears, and I began to skip back and forth before I realised…

This was no ordinary tune.

This was my favourite.

Haggstrom.

As the music changed again I swayed and twirled, spinning in circles like a lunatic with the music ringing in my ears and the jungle whispering around me in the dead of night… I was disappointed to hear it trail off again.

_Keep taking the pills, girl._

"But I enjoy being weird," I grinned. Downstairs raided, it was time to make this temple feel like a home; I lit up the place with some torches around the windows and had just enough wood to make a door. One door. For a two-block wide gap.

_I see you're mastered defence skills. Next thing you know, you might actually survive a creeper attack._

"**Whoa, Mélodieux, don't overestimate her!"**

"HEY!"

I could _hear _him grinning.

It was still dark and I didn't really want to go out woodcutting in the night, so I just wandered around for a few more minutes before I caught a glimpse of pale blue sky through a window. Peering outside, I smiled as the sky lightened and the sun began to dye the horizon orange.

"Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo, doodie-doodie-doodie doo-doo," I sang, deciding to be a jerk and end the chapter again on a rather unsatisfying no


	30. Interlude: Bad Idea

**A/N: Wai hello there, readers! This chapter isn't late. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, rejoice with me, my loverlies, because the end-of-term holidays begin ON FRIDAAAAAAY! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Because my school's amazing we have Monday (today) off too, so here, have a chapter!**

**I was going to do something productive with this chapter, but this was too awesome to resist.**

**Also, GUYS.**

**GUYS.**

**GUYS, GUESS WHAT.**

**NO, DON'T GUESS.**

**I'LL TELL YOU.**

**I'M.**

**ON.**

**YOUTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUBE!**

**Look look look! Type in YouTube's address and put this on the end of it: /watch?v=h2PPsOVEgX8&feature=plcp. Minus the full stop. And make sure to give this guy all your likes and comments and views and subscribes and stuff. If you have a YouTube account. If you don't, MAKE ONE. :P Ever wondered what I sound like? The correct answer is 'a small boy who ate a dictionary'. The video itself is freaking hilarious, however, with myself and the lovely xoxLEXIxox being incredible failures on her laggy server. Laggy, laggy server. Go watch it and comment and stuff. Or else. I KEEL YOU**

**Now to get on with the chapter! :D**

"THIS IS HALLOWE'EN!" I sang, pressing the 'create world' button with joy. "THIS IS HALLOWE'EN! HALLOWE'EN! HALLOWE'EN! HALLOWE'EN! HALLOWE'EN!"

_Argh, no need to yell! Your singing is bad enough when you speak normally._

I huffed as the terrain began to generate.

_Anyway, it's September twenty-third. It's nowhere near Halloween._

"Hallowe'en!" I corrected her with a grin. "Say it properly, Mélodieux!

_Not a chance._

I stuck my tongue out at her, floating in the Void as I waite.

"**But really, why are you singing about Halloween?"**

"Elementary, my dear Triston!" I proclaimed, holding up a knowing finger. "I'm playing no ordinary Minecraft; this, my friends, is-"

_Thwump-thwump!_

I froze.

It sounded like footsteps.

On snow.

_Real _footsteps.

On _snow._

"Welcome to Snapshot Twelve-double-you-thirty-nine-something-or-other-potato!" I cried, flinging my arms out as pigs snorted, the sound of their footsteps on the grass and snow around me absolutely _perfect._

_What the NETHER-?_

"Come on!" I skipped up a hill, delighted by the sounds of my footsteps, before remembering I was on Creative Mode and crying "WAHOO!" as I leapt into the air and soared over the treetops. There was a big frozen-over lake and I zipped over to it, yelling gleefully all the way before alighting on the ice and grinning at the sound as I touched down. The noise of my feet on the sand was quite literally _the noise of feet on sand _and as I swan-dived into the icy water I laughed at the _sploosh _and dull roar of the liquid. Soaring upwards into the light and the brisk air, I looped-the-loop towards a mountain and pulled a few different types of block out of my bottomless Creative Mode pockets, making block-wide catwalks out of each and strutting down them, delighting in the lovely new noises. I had just hopped off the one made of pink wool when Triston materialised with a puff of blue smoke at its opposite end. I stared at him, curious and floating in mid-air.

He winked at me before pursing his lips model-style and beginning to swagger down the cerise walkway in the girliest fashion he could manage.

Mélodieux and I burst out laughing.

A few minutes later I sat atop a tree and rummaged through my pockets in an attempt to find something else to mess around with, giving up on my texture pack with a sigh when the beacon went untextured and empty maps were invisible. Abruptly Mélodieux appeared and left me choking on fuchsia smoke as she snatched a peculiar brown spawn egg out of my hand, shooting backwards a little way before making sure I was watching. When I was, frowning bemusedly, she clapped the egg between both hands and drew them apart to multiply it. These eggs she sent hurtling towards the ground when she twirled and stopped to face me as they cracked open, throwing back her head, flinging her arms to the sky and cackling maniacally as a great cloud of bats screeched and fluttered around her, her long hair flaring out in a sudden wind and lightning crackling around her as the sky darkened.

_Fear me, Overworld, for I am MÉLODIEUX! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_

Eyes wide, I flew away a bit to continue my experimentation.

"**Ooh, what's that one do?" **Triston poofed into existence and pointed at an acid-green spotted maroon egg. I shrugged and chucked it at the ground, curious.

A purple-robed testificate appeared in the flash of light that announced the egg's cracking open, staring at me with its big nose waving majestically in the wind. It had an enormous wart on it. The testificate's eyes were a lovely lavender colour and its skin was pallid, a green stripe down the centre of its robe.

A pointy black hat sat upon its head.

"A witch!" I exclaimed. They did look really quite good. She stared at me, frowning from behind bushy eyebrows. "What'cha gonna do about it, witchy?" I asked, poking her obnoxiously. She frowned before unfolding her arms to reveal hands with hideous claw-like fingers, a potion bottle gripped in one.

I yelped and darted away.

Over the trees and into the desert I soared, alighting upon the sand and delighting in the sound of my feet shifting on its grains. Mélodieux appeared beside me then, a bat sitting proudly on her shoulder, and snatched a beacon out of my pocket.

_Try this thing._

Surprisingly enough, she handing it to me before floating a small way away with a smug smirk on her face, presumably thinking I would have no idea how to use it.

With a defiant huff, I brought some blocks of diamond, gold and emerald out of my pocket and decided to see what I could do.

About ten minutes, a diamond and a small, derpy pyramid later the beacon was refusing to give off any light and Mélodieux was cracking up behind me. Fuming, I punched the thing and winced as the emerald block below it broke and it disappeared. _Wait a second, _I thought as it hit me like bedrock to the face, _maybe it's not _supposed _to sit on an extra block!_

Grinning with excitement and the feeling of stupidity, I stuck the beacon down. _Shoom! _Tendrils of pure white energy shot up from the beacon's obsidian base and disappeared into the heavens as though to spike Notch in the butt and tell him to get the update out faster. The things looked vicious, too, almost serrated; I stood in them to see if they would hurt, but then I realised I was in Creative Mode and wouldn't get hurt anyway.

_Remind me never to trust you. With anything. Ever._

By that time night had fallen and monsters roamed about in the desert. I decided there needed to be bats out here too, so I whipped out some spawn eggs and scattered them to the winds.

Then there were about twenty bats flitting around in the edges of my vision and annoying the Nether out of me. I gritted my teeth.

Before I knew it I was running around with a diamond sword trying to catch the blasted things and more often managing to hit myself, the ground or the air. A good many bruises – _Not_ _even Creative Mode can keep you from hurting yourself – _and holes in the terrain later, I was panting with exertion and still one more bat fluttered about, silhouetted against the sky. I was under a chunk from the beacon and further into the desert, but it was dark out here and there were a few spiders about.

Tappatappatappatappatap.

I froze.

Tappatappatappatappatap.

What _was _that noise?

Tappatappatappatappatap.

I dug a small hole, thinking it could be water flow. There was nothing but sand underground.

Tappatappatappatappatap.

I looked around, puzzled.

Tappatappatappatappatap.

A spider's movement caught my eye, the sound stopping just as it halted.

I gaped as it skittered along again.

Tappatappatappatappatap.

"Spider footsteps!" I cried joyously, clapping my hands like an excited child.

_That's because you are an excited child._

Shut up. "Oh, they make noises now! Yes, Notch! YES!"

A few minutes of chucking around splash potions of invisibility like a maniac later, I was dancing atop the beacon in leather armour that looked like pyjamas, that being the only thing that made me visible. A little annoyed at the lack of a crafting grid in my inventory, I took out a crafting table and proceeded to dye all the armour dark purple as Mélodieux screamed at me for being an idiot.

I then resumed my dancing as the sun came up and Triston joined me.

Later still I stood before a groaning Nether portal, the sand around me rather glassy after I had discovered that fire made a clapping sound when lit and a delightful hiss when extinguished. Coupled with the rasp of breaking sand, I had created quite the rap beat.

I dived into the portal without a thought and was quite surprised when the usually slow-acting portal sucked me right in and shortly spat me out into the Nether.

_What are you planning to do here…?_

My only reply was a grin as I jumped into the air and flew off into the redness of the fiery realm. Mélodieux and Triston followed, curious and the latter rather worried.

%-%

Brisk night winds stirred my hair gently as I floated above the taiga, a short way from a tall spruce tree. Atop its leaves stood a bizarre T-shape of soul sand, two black skulls resting on top of the arms of the T.

_What are you _planning? _Tell me already!_

I just grinned again and Triston wrung his hands worriedly, anticipating something terrible. He was right. In my hands was clutched a third charred-looking skull and I ran my fingers over its smooth cranium gently, floating forwards a little.

I plonked down the skull in the centre of the T and bolted.

Mélodieux screamed a curse and Triston yelped in fear, both of them disappearing in clouds of pink and blue smoke respectively as some kind of hideous _thing _materialised above the tree. "Bad idea! _Bad _idea!" I moaned as the creature's blue form glowed and pulsed, warped and expanded.

In the top of my vision a purple bar appeared.

The text above it read 'Wither'.

I retreated to a safe distance while the creature I called the Wither King (I had seen it mentioned by that name in the Yogscast's snapshot video and now have it stuck in my head) expanded and glowed with an eerie blue light, growing and growing as its health bar filled up…

BOOM!

With a cacophonous explosion the Wither King was at full health, its three heads peering around curiously at its surroundings. Without further ado it launched glowing blue skulls at the ground, the trees, anything really, not moving from its place but eager to destroy. A yelp escaped my lips and I whipped out a bow as Mélodieux screamed at me for being an idiot and I drew back the string, aiming, aiming… FIRE!

Fwiit-thuk!

It looked at me.

All three heads turned to look at me, bright in the darkness, white-eyed and white-mouthed, its hide a deadly black, the three spines on either side of its long, serpentine body flexing grotesquely. This thing wasn't awesome like the Enderdragon. This thing was scary and ugly.

And shooting a charred-looking projectile straight at me.

That wasn't good.

I dipped and dived and zipped and loosed arrow after arrow at the thing, dodging the black projectiles it fired at me and the blue projectiles that aimed for anything, really. When it came too close I screamed and hit it away, wanting to descend and get further from it but not having enough _time…_

So I fled across the water and out of the taiga and onto some plains where it was silent and warmer and that, that _thing _wasn't there. I collapsed on the grass and stared up at the star-speckled night sky, breathing heavily. Dear _Notch, _that had been horrible…

_And _you _started it. So get some bookcases out, enchant that bow, get your wimpy butt back over there and show that Wither King that _you're _the only one who gets to rip these worlds apart!_

Triston cheered and clapped his hands.

"That's not really all that encouraging, you kno-"

_And since _when _am I encouraging? JUST DO IT._

I found a bookcase in one hand and an enchantment table in the other. Slowly I placed them and when the table was down its book opened and fluttered its pages at me beckoningly.

I took a step forward and poured my boundless Creative Mode strength into thirty levels' worth of enchantments.

Holding up the glowing bow – _Punch II, Power IV _was inscribed on it in crystalline letters – I drew back the string and let an arrow appear in my hand experimentally. It felt wonderful.

Mouth a determined line, I leapt into the air and dashed towards the Wither King.

A few minutes later I dashed back awkwardly and enchanted a diamond sword so I could actually damage the thing again, but you don't need to know that.

Finally I drove my glowing blade into the horrible thing's middle head and, silent as it had always been, it fell to the ground and vanished in a cloud of grey dust. As I alighted on the snowy soil where it had fallen the skeletons and zombies that had gathered there burst into applause and I smiled at them, surprised, before picking up the Nether star that had fallen there. It was warm to the touch but fitted quite awkwardly in my hand due to its odd shape.

_Worth it, I'm sure._

"Not for _that _thing!" I shuddered at the thought of the Wither King's empty eyes. Nothing was worth fighting that thing. Something made me look up, however, and smile at the sight of the rising sun.

"Good morning, Minecraft…"

_Good morning, fool._

"'**Morning!"**

Mélodieux and I burst out laughing.


	31. Day Twenty: Cheater, Cheater

**A/N: Yaharr, me hearties! Welcome to t' another chapterrr o' The World in Which We Fail! Oh Notch, the Pirate Speak's getting to me again… anyway, before I forget, a thousand thanks to Dgmnfangirl080/Enderchild for drawing FANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART. FANAAAAAAAAAAART. FANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART. It's amazing and wonderful and beautiful and I just can't, so make sure you go to my dA page ('Abberance', all my stuff is tagged with it) and find my favourites and faint with overwhelmed…y…ness… yeah. IT'S AMAZING, OKAY? And a thousand apologies to xoxLEXIxox, who is both just plain awesome and who made fanart all eternity ago and yet I didn't mention it. That's in my favourites, too – a hilarious picture of Gregory staring at me creepily – and you need to see. She thinks it's crap. I disagree.**

**Sorry this took so long, but real life happened. It sucks when real life just goes around HAPPENING at people. It's freaking annoying. Thanks to my dear friend Cder3 for inspiring Mélodieux. :D**

**Also, on Friday I got an email saying a Canadian had favourited this. Curiosity aroused, I checked the story's traffic stats.**

**EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO VISITORS WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE**

**AND THAT WAS JUST SEPTEMBER**

**THERE'S BEEN TWENTY-EIGHT MORE IN THE THREE DAYS SINCE THEN**

**WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAT**

**Now I've decided I'm going to greet you all, so here goes. *cracks knuckles and opens Internet* Hello to the USA, Canada, the UK, Singapore and Nigeria, ni hao and ****l****éih ****h****óu**** to China, g'day to Aussie, kumusta to the Philippines, hallo and bonjour to Belgium, dia duit to Ireland, guten tag to Germany, WHAT THE HECK HONG KONG'S REGARDED AS A COUNTRY ni hao to Hong Kong and Taiwan, konnichiwa to Japan, hallo to the Netherlands (hur hur hur, NETHERlands) and South Africa (with eleven official languages, you only get one :P), hallå to Sweden, halló to Iceland and Hungary, olá to Brazil, ****sous-dey**** to Cambodia (YOU GUYS HAVE THE COOLEST LANGUAGE), olá and elo to East Timor, hello and bonjour to Jersey, alo to Romania, merehaba (or so I think it's spelt; Google Translate gave no phonetic spelling :P) to the United Arab Emirates, hei to Finland, ¡hola to Mexico, hej to Denmark, hello and ¡hola to Puerto Rico, ****miesalmebi**** to Georgia, bonjour to France, hello to Malaysia, pryvit to Ukraine, halo to Indonesia, privet to Russia, annyeonghaseyo to the Republic of Korea, ****namastē**** to India, WHOA WHERE THE HECK IS THAT hello to ****Brunei Darussalam****, ****m****horoi****, hello and ****s****alibonani**** to Zimbabwe, cześć**** to Poland and finally, **_**finally, **_**'sup to all my mates in New Zealand. Wow. You guys are freaking **_**everywhere. **_**You know how long it took me to write all that? Half an hour. HALF. AN. HOUR. Maybe even fifty minutes of jumping between Wikipedia, Google Translate and****random websites so I could greet you all in all your amazing languages. Thanks so much to all eight hundred and ****twenty-two**** of you loverlies who stopped by to give this story a read and any more of you who'll read through it in the future. I can't thank you enough for the time you've taken to put up with my ramblings, so *takes deep breath to begin saying 'thank you' in all your languages…***

**I jest. :P**

**But I'd totally do it.**

**I'll try this again at chapter fifty and see how many languages I have to find. :D**

**Now, ON TO THE CHAPTER**

I entered the world and smiled at the sight of the sunrise. All was peaceful and silent and

"MAAAAAW!"

I cried out and my head hit the ceiling as I jumped, every cow in the vicinity screaming at once just to spite me.

White smoke gently teased my hair out as Herobrine's laugh sounded through the temple.

I said a _very _rude word.

_Language!_

"Says the freaking succubus!" I yelled, grabbing my hair and holding it down, picturing her as shown in Enderchild's drawing. My own design had been completely different… though a few nights ago I had drawn her again with an arrow-tipped tail and small horns. I began heading down the stairs as they spoke.

_Oh, that hurts. It really does._

"**You should have fire powers 'cause you're all pink and stuff and I should have water powers 'cause I'm blue and stuff!"**

'_And stuff'. Eloquent and creative as ever, I see. And it's fuchsia. Not pink. Fuchsia._

"Fuchsia _is_ pink."

_Shut. Up._

"Aw, but that takes all the-"

Fitch. Ssssss…

"OHCRA-"

BOOM!

I was sent flying out of the half-doorless entrance and straight into the loving embrace of a jungle tree that did about as much to cushion my fall as a cactus. "Ow!" I yelled, lifting up one hand to inspect it; it was covered in tiny spines off the leaves of the plant. Since when were jungle trees _sharp?_

Triston whistled innocently.

Growling, I brushed the miniscule needles off my palms and pants before leaping at the vines hanging down the side of the temple and scrambling up to the platform to inspect the damage.

Most of the front wall was gone.

Mélodieux sniggered.

Collecting the blocks left over from the creeper's explosion, I replaced them in the gap. Three blocks were missing from the wall where only two had been gone before.

I groaned.

After quite a long escapade of acquiring two pieces of cobblestone and cutting down a tree or three, the door was repaired and all was right with the world.

Adjusting my golden helmet – Mélodieux hadn't been too happy, but I had danced around the room chanting a victory chant – I went down the stairs into the hallway with the levers and began to dig downwards.

Down, down, down, pickaxe thumping rhythmically on the rock and lulling me into a kind of daydreamy stupor as my eyelids grew heavy and

CLANK!

I jumped backwards with a yelp of surprise and landed hard on the staircase behind me, the broken fragments of my pickaxe resting on the ground in front of me.

Mélodieux sniggered.

"Oh, come _on!" _I cried, smashing a fist against the wall and regretting it instantly as I hopped around clutching my sore hand.

Mélodieux sniggered.

"What's tickled you?" I demanded, annoyed.

_Oh, nothing, nothing. I just had an idea for how you could get a diamond pickaxe, but that's nothing you need to worry about. It's not like you need one or anything._

I froze. "Tell me!" I begged. "Please!"

_Oh, I dunno. You'd have to make it worth my while._

"**Just tell her, Mélodieux!"**

_Well… fine. Repeat after me, Mellifluousness. "Mélodieux is the most beautiful, amazing, kind and incredible voice to ever speak in my head."_

I gritted my teeth at first, but then I realised that I didn't exactly have to _mean_ the words. "Mélodieux is the most beautiful, amazing, kind and incredible voice to ever speak in my head," I repeated, carefully keeping my face impassive. I felt Mélodieux's dubious stare on me, but thankfully she let it go and I punched the air in triumph in my head. Victory!

_Triston, open the world to the LAN._

I gaped.

It was so _obvious!_

"_/op Mellifluousness," _I commanded, wincing as the hissing red voice told me there was no such command. It seemed there were no ops in LAN worlds. Instead I asked Triston for the item ID of the diamond pickaxe…

"_/give Mellifluousness 278 1."_

And with an unearthly glow and a loud _shing, _a diamond pickaxe rested between my fingers.

"VICTORY!" I cried, taking the thing in both hands and attempting to swing it around but instead just managing to break all the blocks to my sides in the one-block tunnel and somehow hitting my jaw again too. Clutching my chin and grinning like no one with half a brain should while blood dripped through their fingers, I readied my pickaxe and began to mine.

Nearly twenty-five levels later I had acquired enough iron and redstone for a compass – just what I needed, actually – and Void dust rose up around my ankles disconcertingly. My palms were still a little hot from the stinging experience given to me by the redstone, but the chill of the Void was far from welcome. Unearthly _whisss-pers _sounded all around me and I decided it was time to head back up and home.

Back on the lowest floor of the temple, the mooing of cows and baaing of sheep greeted me as I climbed the stairs and constructed a furnace to stick down next to my crafting table, slipping some wood and the four iron inside before I sat down next to it and felt my tired eyes drifting slowly shut in the cool of the jungle night.

"Goodnight, Minecraft…"

_Goodnight… cheater._

"**Cheater, cheater, dog turd eater!"**

"Oh, shut up."


	32. Day Twenty One: The Battle of Ir Qas

**A/N: Here we are, my loverlies, another Saturday and another case of me being late! I have a reason this time, as you'll soon see. SHUT UP**

**So, I've heard it through the grapevine that one can upload Minecraft models into Blender. I've no idea how to do that as of yet, but I could find out if you guys want me to and upload some still images (NO WAY AM I ANIMATING) to DeviantART to give you guys a better picture of my world and the things I do. I can't be bothered doing it if you guys don't care, so if you want me to, say so. :D**

**I know I messed with tense a bit here, but I couldn't care less. :P**

**Also, we have a mystery guest this chapter! Exciting, right?**

***silence***

***ehem* Well, I had fun with it. Sorry if I got you wrong, Mystery Guest, but I don't really know you all that well. I've been waiting to do this for so long and you're the one who inspired me to do it, so thanks! Don't ask about my description of you, either. Phil works in mysterious ways… *wiggles fingers mysteriously, backing into the shadows***

**Actually, I cameo'ed a lot of you. Ah well. LOVE YOU GUYS.**

***awkward silence***

**On with the chapter!**

The compass' bright red needle spun around a few times as I wiggled it back and forth to get it to work, finally coming to rest pointing towards my spawn point. I haven't had the most practice in crafting compasses so the thing was pretty shabby-looking, but I grinned in triumph, collected my furnace and crafting table and dashed out the door of the temple.

Through the jungle, darting between the undergrowth and laughing at sheep trapped in the grip of the leaves, over the river with a none-too-graceful belly flop and stumbling from the water onto the plains. Slice a few pigs into strips of bacon and dash across the grass, shivering at the sight of chunks loading beneath my feet and not noticing the ravine until I'm landing in it with a sickening _crunch. _Pillar back out again, ignoring Mélodieux's insults, and continue into amazing blocky mountains full of all sorts of bizarre overhangs and shapes. Lope over the hills and dips into an oak forest where branches reach out to whack my face and the compass needle points rigidly forward…

Finally I emerged from the trees and ascended one of the mountains around the Grave of the Laws of Physics, standing dramatically on its peak and posing as the chunks loaded before me, gradually revealing the buildings of Ir Qas and-

Wait.

I gaped, hands falling from my hips, back hunching as I stared forward.

Mélodieux appeared on my left, gaping.

Triston materialised on my right, gaping.

We were generally gaping.

_What._

"**The."**

"NETHER?"

Huge ravines tore up the plains, craters pocking the charred-looking grass and often filled with lava. Great towers of the molten rock had formed and springs of it had welled up, fire burning everywhere, the village itself in ruins. The sky was dark with smoke, the air thick. "WHAT THE NETHER HAPPENED HERE?" I yelled. "Triston, what did you do?"

"**Nothing! I was with you the entire time!" **he cried, still staring at the mess that was Ir Qas.

"Mélodieux?" I asked, despairing.

_Oh yes, blame it all on me, why don't you? I wouldn't do this!_

"**It's Herobrine! He's at it again!"**

"DON'T EVEN-"

Abruptly thunder boomedand lightning struck my foot, causing me to scream and hop around holding it as I tried to cool the twisted, burnt scales. Coughing and hacking in the smoke-filled air, a huge winged form was silhouetted amongst the flames the lightning had left behind.

_Who's this, I wonder?_

"**One of Herobrine's minions, I'll bet! Let's get 'im!"**

"No, wait, wait," I coughed, ash in my lungs from all the gasping I had done. "They might be able to explain all this," I said hoarsely. "Um, hi?" I called, now standing safely behind a dirt block I had pulled from my inventory. My toes still stung.

The figure reared up in the heat of the flames, stretching out enormous shining wings, some kind of spiked helmet visible atop its head. Its great robe swirled out around it and it opened its mouth to speak…

"Crap, my robe's on fire!"

With a repetitive _shing, shing, shing _like metal on metal the person spread their huge wings and leapt into the air, beating them rapidly to escape the flames. The robe was revealed to be red (not just with the fire) and the young man's wings were made of metal, great shining iron things that were slightly red with the heat of the lightning. A helmet was indeed atop his head, short spikes protruding from it above his temples. Big boots graced his feet and he was tall despite the fact that he looked quite young; his face was unfamiliar when he turned to look at me after his robe was extinguished, but he smiled when he saw me. "Hey, Flu!" he said cheerily.

"Um, hi," I repeated, still uncertain of who the Nether this guy was. Tentative, I asked and he laughed.

"Oh, right, forgot to say! MechanixAngel at your service," he said with a flourishing bow. I gaped again.

"But _how _are you _here?" _I cried.

"Oh, uh…" he faltered before gesturing to the ruined plain. "That," he said vaguely.

"_You _did this?"

Mélodieux burst out laughing.

_One of your own readers destroyed your village! How unfortunate can you _get?

"No, no, no!" replied Mechanix, shaking his hands at me, apparently not hearing her. "I'm just here to _tell _you about it. Take a seat, this is gonna be a _long _story." Curiosity aroused, I vaulted over the dirt block and sat down on it, cross-legged and folding my hands in my lap. Triston sat on the ground and Mélodieux leaned huffily on the air, annoyed at not being heard. Mechanix took a deep breath…

Ballad-ish music sprung out of the air as he began.

"_So I was flying through the Aether  
>to Megadeth's great beats<br>when, much to my surprise,  
>who was I to meet<br>but Notch himself  
>all freaking out<br>and saying "Come quickly!"  
>So we dove down through the cloud layers<br>and the Overworld's Roof-of-Sky  
>and came out above some plains;<br>I thanked Notch I could fly!  
>There was fire in the grass and<br>there was fire in the air  
>and some random psychopathic dude<br>with fire in his hair!  
>Cows were oinking, pigs were mooing -<br>or, er, something along those lines -  
>and I yelled, "Dammit, Notch, are you out of your mind?"<br>He just said "Have fun fixing this!"  
>and was gone in a flash<br>as some flaming rocks from the sky hit the water with a splash!  
>I dove down through the clouds again<br>and surveyed the terrain  
>for a moment before deciding<br>I'd just do the insane!  
>With a snap of my fingers<br>falling from the sky  
>were some of your reviewers<br>screaming "I CAN FLY!"  
>There was LexiLopezi<br>yellow raincoat and all  
>rocket launcher in hand<br>in a super-epic fall!  
>And xoxLEXI<br>all in ninja-garb  
>danced crazily in mid-air<br>and yelled "I swear it's fun!"  
>Dearest Lex4 and 5etharama<br>faceless in the boss-est way  
>whipped out some enchanted bows<br>and I cried "Fire away!"  
>Cder3, like Harry Potter,<br>took out an oversized bazooka  
>and I kind of blocked my ears<br>as he yelled, "Well, sock 'em to ya!"  
>Sparkgirl, chibi cat-thing<br>awkwardly held a diamond sword  
>and PigeonFligher, with blue wings<br>shouted some choice words!  
>Cherno was all glowy and<br>Gothkat was twin men,  
>wondering what the heck<br>was with your imagination, then!  
>Exb held a big gun,<br>Dgmn was boss-anon,  
>Anthai had an oversized sword…<br>dear Notch, I could go on!  
>So all your favourite reviewers<br>joined me in the fight  
>and Herobrine looked over us<br>and laughed, "Well, I was right!  
>You're stupid enough to face me -<br>you probably get it from her -  
>But you know what? It's completely fine<br>as you're about to learn!"  
>And, with a great flash of light<br>fifty creepers filled the town  
>and we engaged them all in battle<br>with an uproarious sound!  
>Fireballs flew everywhere -<br>rockets, bullets, arrows too -  
>as mobs upon mobs were summoned<br>and each and every one we slew!  
>Herobrine really had a thing for flame<br>and we came away with burns  
>and he was kind of half-invincible<br>but we're with you, so we don't learn!  
>Things got pretty epic<br>when a thunderstorm rolled in  
>half-drowned the lot of us<br>and put out the fires lit by him!  
>Lightning didn't help much<br>but really lit up the scene,  
>nearly hit the Lexis<br>and caused them both to scream!  
>We dealt a thousand points of damage<br>because we're all just that amazing  
>built some cannons using redstone<br>and danced around like crazy!  
>As the sky itself provided music<br>and made it ten times awesomer  
>someone brought up the airship mod<br>and we flew about like birds,  
>dropping random crap from the sky<br>on Herobrine's head,  
>dodging ghasts' projectiles,<br>shedding light on the undead!  
>Then we all came together -<br>we did this part pretty well -  
>thrust out our hands and chorused,<br>"Hey, enjoy your trip to Hell!"  
>Purple portal-substance<br>just appeared in the sky,  
>and Herobrine was sent flying<br>towards it with a raging cry!  
>Deprived of their leader,<br>the monsters all just went away  
>and we let out a raucous cheer<br>at the sight of coming day!  
>High-fiving and hollering,<br>your readers all went home  
>and I was called up to the Aether<br>though I did whine and moan.  
>And I was sent back down again<br>as you were coming back  
>to tell you, dearest Melli-flu<br>of Herobrine's attack!  
>Believe me, I don't lie here,<br>I tell it like it was;  
>just popping by to inform you<br>of the Battle of Ir Qas!"_

Mechanix raised his palms to the sky and grinned at me as he held that last note, the ballad-ish music drawing to a triumphant close and a few fingers of lightning stabbing the ground in the distance, thunder rolling for extra effect. Triston burst into applause, whooping and cheering and calling for an encore. Mélodieux clapped slowly, looking a little surprised. Mech didn't seem to hear them.

"So… you did this?" I pointed at the ravaged plains, staring at the exultant steel-winged boy, my face unreadable. "You and all my other readers?"

"Uh… well, most of it was Herobrine and mobs, but… pretty much, yeah," he admitted, rubbing the back of his head guiltily.

My face remained unreadable.

There was an incredibly long awkward silence.

Mech found something incredibly interesting in the sky to look intently at.

"I have the best reviewers _ever!" _I yelled suddenly, jumping up and punching the air before doing a victory dance in a circle, causing Mélodieux to sigh and roll her eyes exasperatedly and Triston to laugh, getting up to dance with me. Mech stared at me for a moment before laughing and nodding his head. "Yeah, whatever, Flu," he said, grinning at my idiocy.

_And you certainly have a lot of idiocy to grin at. How could you be _happy _with this?_

Oh, I can find a lot to be happy with. "Can you fix it, though?" I asked, jerking my thumb in the direction of Ir Qas.

Laughing again, he admitted that yes, that was what he was supposed to be doing and, turning to face the plains, he closed his eyes and placed his hands together in front of his face.

_Oh boy, here we go again._

I shushed her. "It's dramatic, don't ruin it."

"_/repair land Ir Qas," _Mech commanded. Triston stuck his fingers in his ears and I glanced at him, surprised, before regretting not doing so myself as with a flat _BOOM _and a flash of light a visible shockwave spread across the plains, covering over gashes and pits, making lava vanish from sight and extinguishing fires until it disappeared into the distance and left a serene, untouched grassland in place of the destruction, Ir Qas in pristine condition. I gaped, half-bent over, hands still covering my ears, staring at the scene before me.

Birds chirped from somewhere and a couple of butterflies fluttered past my vision.

Mélodieux began to clap slowly again.

"You're welcome!" Mechanix sang, departing with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning.

"**Whee, let's go see if the villagers are back!" **Triston said happily, swooping down towards the grassland below us.

I just gaped until Mélodieux dragged me down with her.


	33. Day Twenty Two: Fiery Door

**A/N: Argh, sorry I skipped out on last week, guys. My excuse isn't exactly a life-or-death situation, either; my computer had a short heart attack and randomly crashed as I was writing, meaning I lost quite a bit of this. And then I just plain couldn't have been bothered writing it again. -_- I AM SUCH AN IDIOT**

**So, most of you seemed to enjoy whatever the heck happened last time. Except maybe Nyroc. Love you too, Nyroc. Also, Daz, **_**where **_**did you get the idea that I don't care about guests? Was it the three hundred and twenty-seven words and fifty minutes I spent greeting everyone from long-time reviewers to people who haven't reviewed at all? I **_**adore **_**the lot of you and I am grateful for every review, read and visit I get from you. :) So don't go getting any ideas. And sorry to all those who weren't included in the poem; I actually just looked through the most recent page of reviews at the time and took down some names. :P I **_**would **_**have included all of you, but that would have just gone on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…**

**AND TO THAT GUEST. Actually, I'm blonde IRL and have purple hair in-game. I suppose it would be nice to have red hair, but I don't really care. :P And plot advances? You're lucky this story even **_**has **_**a plot. If I hadn't seen Loony in that mine, it wouldn't! If you're looking for plot, check out some of the other stories on my profile, or I'd recommend FullMoonFlygon's **_**The Miner's Destiny, **_**MechanixAngel's **_**The Prophecy of Minecraftia, **_***le mindblank, checks profile* Geia Akyama's **_**The Secret Lives of Endermen, **_**Shado-chan's **_**Cube Land, **_**KatrinaLinden's **_**Respawn **_**or **_**Elementorum Ignotum… **_**the list could go on. :P This story's more for amusement than plot, like any Let's Play you'll find on YouTube. Just to let you know. And that's a very interesting idea. I might use that. :D**

**Now to stop rambling and WRITE ALREADY**

"**Are we lost?"**

"No, Triston, we are _not _lost," I replied, peering into the depths of a ravine that looked kind of familiar and yet not at the same time. "We're just… geographically challenged."

_Yes. About as geographically challenged as a noob on a Player versus Player server. That is, you._

"Oh, gee, thanks," I retorted, casting my gaze over the ledge I stood on until I saw what appeared to be a safe way down and began to leap from block to block. Unfortunately, I soon found myself having to dig out a staircase downwards, finally reaching the floor of the ravine and snatching some lapis from one of its walls. This done, I looked around; the ceiling was enveloped in blue fog no matter how I squinted, ledges and depressions lining the walls and lava and water oozing from small holes in them. It was mainly devoid of ores, but I wasn't looking for ores.

No, it was the purple-black rock visible beneath trickling water that _really _caught my eye.

Thus I spent about ten minutes attempting to block off the waterfall and more often than not ending up flat on my face in its slightly warm grasp. Finally a makeshift dam was in place and the obsidian covering the ground was there for the taking.

After two minutes and ten seconds total of hitting at the blasted stuff.

Finally (again) I had the magical number of ten blocks in my inventory and decided that was enough, attempting to release the water and giving up when it decided that no, it did not want to be released and would be weird and glitchy in protest. Exhausted, arms aching, I headed back to my staircase and looked over the ravine one last time…

And grinned.

There was a creeper.

Standing on a ledge.

In plain view.

I checked my inventory.

One arrow.

I looked at the creeper.

It was on the edge of my vision, blurred in the fog.

_No way you can hit it._

You sure?

_Yes._

Sure you're sure?

_Yes._

Sure you're sure you're su-

_Alright, alright, just try it!_

I took my bow off my back. Okay, I _attempted _to take my bow off my back. The string managed to get tangled around my neck and the wood creaked in protest as I fiddled with it and eventually I managed to prise it off me and hold it in my hands. Right. Left hand on the bow… suddenly there was a quiver on my back and with some difficulty I withdrew a single arrow from it with my right hand, holding it just above the feathers between index finger and middle finger. This had to be a skeleton's arrow (not like I ever crafted them), viciously barbed and perfectly crafted. How did they even _make _these? Shaking this thought from my mind, I nocked it to the bow and drew back the string. My tired arms screamed in protest, but thankfully Minecrafters are strong creatures and I managed to pull the string all the way back.

I took aim, closing one eye.

_Triston, what's your bet she shoots her own toe?_

"**I'll give you a diamond if she doesn't."**

I muttered something in reply, concentrating, crosshair shaking…

And fired.

Fwiiiiiiit-thuk!

The creeper flashed red for a moment.

"Wahoo!" I cried, dancing on the spot victoriously and waving my bow around.

_That'll be one diamond, Triston._

"**Aw…"**

And with that, I set out for the surface.

%-%

The sun was rising, the sky turning blue, the plains lighting up.

The Minecrafter was lying in her bed, screaming curses at skeletons and slimes and zombies and lost-ness and everything underground.

"I can't believe it!" I yelled, getting up and pacing around the room. "I just can't bloody believe it!"

_Planning on telling your readers what happened?_

"No," I grouched, sitting cross-legged on the crafting table with my arms folded and fuming at the door. "They don't need to know anything."

"**I will!"**

"Buzz off."

"**Right," **Triston began, **"She got hopelessly lost and killed some skeletons and shot things with her bow and got lots of iron and explored some caves and got even lost-er and then she was fighting a skeleton and it got an arrow into her skull. It was funny because it looked like it was laughing."**

"Shut. Up."

"**So now she's lost her diamond pick and all her obsidian and pretty much everything. And I got my diamond back,"** he added triumphantly.

I sighed, standing up and climbing the ladder to the roof. Leaning on the fence to look out at the village, I sighed yet again.

"Triston, open the server to the LAN and find me some item IDs, would you?

_Cheater, cheater._

"Oh, shut _up."_

_Nah. Cheater, cheater, cheater, cheater…_

%-%

A short while later I had my diamond pickaxe back, ten obsidian, a bow and four arrows (though I had found seventeen in the chest), an iron sword, fifty-one coal and fifty-nine iron. I was clad fully in the shiny silvery stuff now, feeling a little clunky and awkward in it but managing to move around easily enough. Returning to the roof, I looked over the village, contemplating where to build the portal.

My eyes came to rest on the roof of the church tower.

_No. Just no._

I grinned.

_Oh, come _on!

And that was how Ir Qas' church gained use of the Nether portal.

_True story._

I limped onto one of the church's crenulations to survey my work; the obsidian frame rose five blocks in the air, its corners of cobblestone, and loomed over the village like some brooding… terrifying… thing.

_Again, your vocabulary astounds me._

The portal had cost me about half my health when I had fallen off the church, but it had been worth it.

A quick trip back to my house left me with quite a bit of iron and some cooked porkchops; I organised my inventory and fished out a piece of flint from the chest, getting the position of the flint and steel right first time on the crafting table, much to my pleasure. Back on the church tower, I climbed the makeshift cobblestone stairs to stand in front of the portal.

_Planning on lighting it any time soon?_

"There's only one way to light a Nether portal," I announced knowingly, flint and steel in hand.

_Oh really?_

"**How?"**

"Like so," I said, holding the flint and steel up in front of my face and closing my eyes as though in concentration.

"Herobrine, Herobrine, Herobrine!" I cried, spinning around and smacking the flint and steel together with a sharp _click. _A single spark leapt from between them and landed inside the frame, igniting instantly and impossibly into a block-high blaze that spread until its fiery fingers touched the obsidian edges and violet stretched across it, filling the space and beginning to swirl dizzyingly. I lowered the flint and steel, pleased…

And yelped as purple tendrils lashed out from their dark prison, seizing my armoured arms and legs and pulling me into the portal.

_OH, YOU IDIO-_

Slimy magenta pushed its way into my eyes, ears and mouth, pressing down on my skin and threatening to crush me, and I heard no more.


	34. Day Twenty Three: Mrr Ehh, Oo

**A/N: Well, here we are again, with yet another chapter and ONE POINT FOUR ERMAGHEEEEEEEEEEEEEERSH PAR-TAY Now everything's amazing and I love it. So yeah. I also have a new skin provided by the lovely 5etharama, so he gets a cameo in return. THANKS, 5ETH! :D This was almost on time. Almost. Sigh…**

**Ah yes, the update thing said that it removed Herobrine. Think I'll get lucky?**

**AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**

**Too much to hope for. T_T**

The portal goo spun me around and around and around in a dizzying spiral, making me lose all perception of up and down, left and right along with my sight and ability to breathe. The disgusting stuff pressed on my eyes, down my throat, into my ears and even up my nose, sliding under my armour and crushing even that, attempting to fight its way into my every pore and crush me to a pulp. I couldn't even scream with its slick, plastic-y taste in my mouth, couldn't move with it trying to mash me…

"Need some help there?" a muffled voice asked, and friendly fingers wiped the violet gunk out of my eyes and drew a great tendril of it out of my mouth. Amaranthine on the edges of my vision, I stared into what appeared to be the face of… an enderman… with glasses?

"5etharama, at your service!" he announced cheerily, a slight English accent to his voice. His quite long not-quite-ender-fingers held on to the front of my chestplate to keep me from flying away from him in the rush of the portal. "You look terrible," he told me disapprovingly.

Coughing and spluttering as portal-goo attempted to enter my throat again, I told him he was as bad as Mélodieux and he laughed. _"Sure _I am. I think it's about time… for a _makeover!" _he cried, making jazz-hands for emphasis before yelping and grabbing me again as I began to drift away.

"A _wha-" _I began, but was cut off when 5eth brought out one of those bizarre poofy things used to apply blush or whatever – I don't have the greatest wealth of knowledge about makeup – and began batting me all over with it as I yelped and squirmed in his grip. He was surprisingly strong, however, and just ordered me to hold still until finally he decided that was enough and put the thing away.

He then brought out a giant paintbrush.

I stared at it.

He grinned.

With great strokes of the thing he somehow managed to recolour my pants and hair, styling the latter and inexplicably lowering my eyes. Putting the brush away in some kind of bottomless pocket, he looked me over once more before taking out two black hairclips and slapping them on either side of my head. Underneath the armour. I have no idea _how _he did it. "Voila!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly before seizing me again. "C'est fantastique!" he added for emphasis. "You now have a new skin. You're welcome!"

"Uh… thanks?" I said, bewildered.

"Oh, here's your stop," noticed 5eth, tilting his head to peer forwards, whichever way that was. "Well, this was interesting. Enjoy the Nether. 5etharama, AWAAAAAAAAAAY!" he cried, pushing off me and zooming away into the portal-gunk sea.

I screamed an abruptly-cut-off curse at him as the violet set in again.

%-%

With what I could swear was an audible _smack _I hit a wall of heat and the portal goo relinquished its grip on me with flair, retracting from me as it spat me out onto warm, hard netherrack. I just knelt on my hands and knees for a moment, gasping for air, skin crawling beneath my armour with the effects of that horrible gunk. I waited for some sarcastic comment from Mélodieux.

And waited.

And waited.

Hadn't she come? My head felt a little bit… _empty. _She hadn't come.

For some ridiculous reason, I realised I missed her.

_Shwoomp._

I sat back on my heels and twisted my body around – a hard thing to do in armour – to look at the portal.

And gaped.

Oh, crap.

It had closed.

The stupid thing had _closed on me!_

Mrr-ehh, oo…

OH, CRAP.

I got to my feet unsteadily and looked around, a tight grip on my sword; there were the usual odd plateaus, dips, peninsulas and rises of the Nether, a few lava falls oozing from the ceiling and glowstone hanging in pretty stalactites above my head. The ghast was nowhere to be seen.

MEEEH-EHH!

Oh no.

Armour clanking in protest, I made a clumsy roll to the side just as a ball of fire smashed into the netherrack next to me, leaving a huge crater and a whole lot of fire. Yelping in terror, I did nothing but run from there; my best bet was finding a Nether fortress, and this direction was as good as any other. Bombarded with fireballs and the screeches of the horrible things, I stumbled over hills and dips until I was dashing across a flat peninsula of red stone away from those inglorious ghasterds. Yes, plural; I could tell from their screeches that there were two. Finally I was hopping down a small hill, feet crunching on gravel and drummingon netherrack, and darting up a small rise towards a long mire of soul sand. Shuddering as I stepped over the stuff, I pressed my back against the netherrack wall just past it and looked around. Right, with my back against the wall the ground fell away into a lava sea on my right, a three-or-four-block-wide lava fall sluggishly meeting it from the roof of the great cave. To my left-

MEEEH-EHH!

Come the Nether _on!_

I did what was more of a faceplant than a roll, dashing (more like attempting to trudge quickly) back across the soul sand and scanning the sea for my invisible attacker. It couldn't have come from my left because-

Merreh oh-oh.

_Shut up. _It couldn't have come from my left _because _there was a great wall of netherrack there; it was probably below me, trying to kill me through walls like a stupid great flying jellyfish. Oh wait, is _was _a stupid great flying jellyfish. You hear that, ghast? You're a _stupid. Great. Flying. Jellyfish. _Burned!

Mrr-ehh, oo.

Right back, at you. Unworried now, I took a few steps towards a large pit in front of me and contemplated how I could get down.

MRROO-EHHH!

Ah.

Dampnas.

That is, damn.

I buried my face in the slimy soul sand beneath me (ew) and scuttled down into the pit, hopping when I thought I was safe from the ghast and dashing to the back of the place, carefully avoiding the few zombie pigmen that were there, discovering that it was a dead end, digging a two-block hole in the back of it and sealing myself in.

Mrr-ehh, oo.

This was as good a place to end as any. I sunk into a sitting position against the wall and took the helmet off, only now letting the heat of the place hit me. For once I was actually grateful for my cold blood; where this kind of warmth would make any mammal drowsy, it energised me despite the slight sting of it. The smell of rot, ash and lava hung heavy in the air, probably deadly. Charming. This place just got better and better. Have I ever mentioned that I have the _worst _luck when it comes to finding Nether fortresses?

Because I do.

I sighed.

Goodnight, Minecraft…

There was no reply.

I hugged my knees up to my chest and tried to go to sleep.


	35. Day Twenty Four: Return to Sender

**A/N: So, uh… it's been about six or so weeks since I've updated. **

**BLAME THE NETHER**

**I'm sorry, guys, but it's REALLY laggy in the Nether and I've had exams and I haven't been bothered and ARGHARGHARGHARGHARGH so yeah. The exams were pretty easy, I'll have you know. But now it's One Point Four Point Five and over one hundred and twenty bugs were fixed. That's pretty much **_**every **_**bug in the game **_**except **_**the lag in the Nether. Stuff you, Mojang. Stuff you.**

**Also, the Aether. "What about the Aether?" you say? THE AETHER IS GOING TO UPDATE. THE AETHER MOD IS GOING TO UPDATE. Rejoice with me, my loverlies! Find their Facebook page and Twitter thread and things and find out because it's amazing. For when it does update, I'd really like to write a story like TWiWWF about it, so I ask you this: would you be fine with me writing that alongside this, would you like it to be a part of this (i.e. one chapter in the World in Which We Fail, one in the Aether) or would you prefer me to finish this first and **_**then **_**go mess around in the Aether? You're my readers and the ones affected by how often I update, so it's your choice. :D**

**This has to be the most alliteration-packed, repeatedly cut off chapter of all time.**

I searched the Nether for all eternity, I swear.

It had taken me a few goes to get out of my little netherrack chamber – break a block, more netherrack, break another block, more netherrack, break _another _block, scream at more netherrack – but I had tried to head for the portal when I got out and failed _completely._

Now I was rounding another corner, bow in hand, and-

What.

Two zombie pigmen sat – _sat – _on a netherrack outcrop about ten or fifteen blocks ahead of me, legs dangling off the tip of it and golden swords sitting on the ground next to them.

And then their voices reached me.

WHAT.

"Hey, did'ya hear that the Minecrafter's got into the Nether now?" one asked.

"Whoa, really?" the other said, surprised. "Well, it'll _never _find the fortress, anyway. I'm told it's pretty hopeless."

Gee, thanks, pigman.

"What, it's not even smart enough to just turn left from where its portal spawned?"

I stiffened.

The other one laughed. "Nah, this'n's real stupid. It's even got Lord Herobrine pissed at it. You'd have to be _real _stupid to get Lord Herobrine pissed at you." They both laughed this time, but I didn't really hear. _Left _from the portal? I had gone the wrong way! I stomped my foot in frustration and the pigmen froze for a moment before leaping to their feet and picking up their swords, extending their arms and beginning to wander around. I stared at them.

Sneaky, sneaky pigmen.

With that, I turned on my heel and used my (lack of an) amazing innate sense of direction to wander the Nether for what had to be five hours until finally I collapsed on the warm red rock in front of the portal. I just groaned and lay there for a moment, sick of all this trudging around in iron armour.

Eventually I found the strength to get up and began to head left. The first thing I noticed was the fact that there was about a ten-block drop before I could actually get anywhere. There was another large plateau-ish rock about twenty blocks from the one I currently stood on, so I decided to turn around yet _again _and mine some netherrack for bridges.

Soon enough the area around the portal was significantly trimmed and a stack of netherrack was condensed into a single cube that sat quite comfortably in the palm of my hand. Thank Notch for Minecraft's comfortable game mechanics. Scrambling down the blocks, I found the part of the island-ish thing I was on that appeared closest to the plateau and began to build a block-wide bridge from there. Since I'm an utter chicken and the drop was more likely about _thirty _blocks I made the bridge by clinging to what I had already built and crawling forwards to place the next cube down. Watching the amount of netherrack in my inventory begin to drop below thirty, I concluded that I simply cannot judge distance for the life of me.

Finally I was suspended over the plateau and stood up, swaying with vertigo for a moment before building up my courage and leaping to the ground. I stumbled as something gave a sickening snap, but it hadn't been anything vital. I hoped. The netherrack bridge just lurked behind me, some unsightly, hovering, glowering monster of doom. I'd have to fix that later. For now, I just built a makeshift staircase leading down to the plateau and went to continue on m-

MEEH-EEH!

Oh, crap.

The ground exploded beneath my feet and fire danced up my limbs as I was sent flying, sprawling a few blocks away and stumbling to my feet again so I could flee. I couldn't see my attacker, but I ran for the nearby cliff instead and threw myself at the slope, attempting to scramble up it.

And freezing on the spot because of lag as crashes, explosions and screams (of the ghast) sounded all around me. Something snapped again.

Suddenly I was free and falling flat on my face, noting the fires flaring up around me and the hillside that was now more a crater. Gritting my teeth against the pain somewhere in my lower body (thank Notch for adrenaline), I got to my feet and drew my sword as I whipped around to face my attacker.

The ghast looked incredibly dramatic as it floated near the opposite 'mountain', framed by two fires and tentacles upheld as though it was prepared to draw weapons. Its red eyes were slightly open beneath heavy lids, its mouth twisted in a cocky smirk.

"Mrrreh," it trilled as though to say, "Come at me, bro."

"Challenge accepted!" I declared, pointing my sword at it in the most melodramatic way possible. It chose this moment to drop its tentacles and screech, jaw gaping as it spat a flaming ball of rock at me. I held my sword like a softball bat (I've never played baseball, so I've no idea how one of those bats is held) and set my stance in all of a second before taking a swipe at the fast-approaching sphere and missing utterly. It crashed into the netherrack beside me and had me ducking after one sharp particle hit me in the head and the others flew in all directions.

There was no time to hesitate, however, as it had shot the next projectile at me already and I ducked to avoid it like an utter boss. The next one I sent hurtling to the side with the pommel of my sword, the next met my blade's tip and blew a hole in the ceiling. One I punched back towards the ghast, which nimbly dodged and fired again with a high-pitched giggle. Another missed me completely, another missed the ghast and then…

Somehow we both knew. This was it. This one would be the death of either me… or my foe. We met each other's gazes in a state of excessive melodrama. I held my sword across my chest. It raised its tentacles. Eyes locked, we prepared ourselves for the ultima-

"Psyche!" cried the ghast, loosing the most enormous fireball at me. Yelping in surprise, I fumbled my sword, stumbled backwards, tripped on a block and fell flat on my face yet again as the huge thing hurtled towards me and prepared to turn me to dust…

_Poom._

I didn't see the ghast's eyes widen as its doomsday bullet was send careering right back at it, but I did hear its hissing scream as it plummeted to the ground and vanished into dust. Raising my head at this odd noise, I was surprised to see a familiar fuchsia form floating in front of me, tail poised and fists held at the ready.

All was silen-

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Return to Sender'!" **exclaimed Triston, popping into existence in front of my face and grinning broadly. I screamed in surprise and punched him, causing him to yelp and disappear in a cloud of blue smoke as Mélodieux whirled around and put her hands on her hips.

_Well, well, well, what have we here? Do I detect a case of myself saving your incompetent behind yet again? Oh yes, I do!_

"It's good to see you too, Mélodieux," I grumbled sarcastically, getting to my feet and dusting myself off. That poor ghast…

_Oh, I'm so glad you missed me so. Couldn't have stayed near the portal for a few moments longer, could you? I tell you, it was a _chore _to have to find you again. It's a good thing Triston was able to detect you, otherwise we'd have been wandering around this Notch-forsaken place for who knows _how _long._

"**Yeah, I'm good at finding you! I can smell you from a mile away," **said Triston, appearing again. I rolled my eyes. My two pieces of schizophrenia were most certainly back.

"**So we're looking for a Nether fortress, right?" **he continued, lying on the air nonchalantly. **"Did'jya know there's a blaze spawner at X equals one-oh-six, Z equals three-six-three?" **I stared at him and he grinned. **"Achievement get! 'Using Co-ordinates'."**

"Wait, first I need to get the experience from the ghast," I announced, wanting to contribute something. I carefully made my way down the hill I had been fighting on and limped awkwardly across the netherrack until those glowing green orbs wormed their stinging way into my body. Turning on F3, I looked around for the direction that would-

I stopped.

Blinking to turn off F3 again, I stared at the odd pearlescent mass that pooled in the bottom of the dip. I took a few steps towards it and crouched beside it, dipping my fingers in it to find it was only a few millimetres deep. I cupped the odd substance in my hands and lifted it to sift it from palm to palm, marvelling at its weight and soundless movement, the way it stayed firmly together while moving liquidly; it was like what I imagined quicksilver to be, shimmering in the light cast by the fires nearby. Somehow my thumb and forefinger found a way to pinch it and it formed a perfect teardrop shape between them. It was only then that I realised what it was. "A ghast tear!" I exclaimed happily, letting it fall into my other hand and closing my fist around it.

_It took you that long to notice?_

"Oh, shut up." Mélodieux was floating with her arms crossed, typical dubious stare on her face. I glared at her.

"**C'mon, let's find the fortress already!" **Triston sounded excited. I blinked F3 into being and stuck my arm out like a detector as I turned robotically, stopping when I found the direction we needed to go in. "This way!"

A few minutes later, we were standing on the edge of an island.

Overlooking an endless sea of lava.

At least thirty blocks below.

"Uh… Plan B, anybody?"

_Grow wings._


	36. Day Twenty Five: Oh, Blazes

**A/N: Hey, look who (didn't) update on time! I'd have been early if I finished this on the day I started. To the Nether with thee, procrastination…**

**WAIT A SECOND.**

**HOLY NETHER, MOJANG.**

**Happy 1.4.6, everybody. O.o**

"**Many issues have been fixed!" Please be Nether lag, please be Nether lag, please be Nether lag…**

**Ohright, and if you know about the whole Elite III thing, I'm done with it. I'd rant, but I'm not annoyed about it anymore. :P I am not a member of the Elite III and this story is not an Elite story. So yeah. **

**Also, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS! WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS! WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEEEEEEEAR**

_**And congratulations for surviving yet another apocalypse.**_

**ON TO THE CHAPTEEEER**

"You know what?"

Thok.

_You're a cheater?_

Thok.

"That too."

Thok.

"But I think all the realms-"

Thok.

"- just plain hate me."

Thok.

_Why am I not surprised?_

Thok.

"Because you're an utter pessimist."

Thok.

_Very true._

Thok.

"**I'm not surprised either!"**

Thok.

"_Shut up, Triston._"

Thok.

"'**Kay…"**

Thok.

So here was my current situation.

Thok.

Helmet: practically concave.

Thok.

Hair: thoroughly singed.

Thok.

Number of netherrack blocks in inventory…

Thok.

Steadily depleting.

Thok.

Total number of ghasts fought today?

Thok.

_Three._

Thok.

Total fireballs to the face…

Thok.

Eight.

Thok.

Current location…

Thok.

About thirty blocks above a roiling sea…

Thok.

Of molten rock.

Thok.

Game difficulty?

Thok.

Peaceful.

Thok.

_Cheater._

Thok.

No kidding.

Thok.

I was heading for an island that hung suspended above the fiery ocean, probably about twenty-five blocks up. A little soul sand outcropping was my more specific destination, since that was the part of it I could reach most easily. I could see a little brown mushroom growing out of the grey-ish muck. How cute. I was making rather slow progress across the fiery gap in the midst of my complaining, but finally I was suspended about four blocks above the murky outcrop. Oh, great. Soul sand. And I'd have to jump down into it.

_Feeling squeamish, are we?_

Yes.

_Oh, how heartbreaking. Jump down already, would you?_

"But it's _gross," _I moaned, peering over the edge of the bridge bleakly.

"**I can help with that!" **Triston proclaimed, materialising behind me, seizing me by the ankles and pitching me over the edge. With a yelp of surprise I landed face-first in the gritty muck and sunk a good few tenths of a block into it, coughing and spluttering as I tried to free my arms and legs and wipe it off my face. Eventually I managed to get to my feet and wobble as the heavy iron boots stuck in it, so I trudged up the blocks and onto the netherrack past it. I let out a sigh of relief once I'd made my way onto the solid crimson stone before mining a staircase upwards and ending up on a platform about forty blocks across. It was empty of pigmen due to the game difficulty-

_That is, your cheating-_

_And, _after checking F3, I strolled calmly to the wall opposite. I climbed the small rise there and entered a rather cosy, interesting-looking compartment-cave-thing where a few fires lazily conversed in their crackly voices. Clambering through it, I made my way up the hill at its end, through the small gap and-

I gaped.

There lay the Nether fortress.

Sluggishly a lava-fall oozed past next to me and about five or six blocks below the maze of dark halls began. They crisscrossed, wound, snaked and just glowered, their deep maroon bricks seeming to exude darkness. Without another thought I hopped down the few blocks I could and jumped, landing with a sickening _snap _on the netherbrick. This walkway was empty save for a single pigman. I began to creep along it, iron sword in hand, heat from the bricks seeming to cook my feet in my boots. Wait, was that a blaze spaw-

A fiery form shot into the air and glared at me with golden eyes.

Well.

_That's certainly a blaze._

No freaking kidding.

_You may want to duck._

W-

With a rush of air and fire three flaming orbs came hurtling towards me and I ducked with a cry of surprise. The heat from them coursed through my helmet and attempted to singe my hair again. I'd be bald by the time I got back to the Overworld, I bet. Leaping to my feet again, I whipped out my bow and nocked an arrow to it, taking aim at the blaze's fiery head. "Two can play at the firing-projectiles-at-each-other-until-someone-dies… game…" I trailed off lamely. It just stared at me as though to ask how the Nether I had thought that would sound even remotely dramatic.

Then it gave up and shot more fireballs at me.

So followed an epic duel in which I got severely burnt, missed about ten times and finally landed a few arrows in the thing's head. With a raspy sigh it combusted, rods, head and smoky body dust in but a moment. I felt horrible.

_Well, you could let it kill you next time._

"And _you _could provide good advice."

_Here's some good advice for you. Go left. Looks like there's a blaze spawner there._

"Oh, lovely. Just plain _lovely," _I said sarcastically, throwing up my arms and turning on my heel to head left. The walkway ducked under an outstretched arm of netherrack ahead and I crept into the shelter of the crimson rock and shadowy brick, bow clutched so tightly that my knuckles turned light grey. They couldn't quite make it to pure white from jet black. Lazy sods.

Suddenly I was within the 'tower' room at the end of the passage and one of those sets of stairs was near-invisible against the wall opposite the entrance. A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard.

Carefully I hopped up the first step.

Then the second.

The third, the forth, the fifth, I opened my eyes without remembering closing them and looked around to see…

Oh, fructose.

"Wai hello there," said Herobrine cheerfully, hands outstretched to either side of him and plumes of fire licking up at them. He was even more intimidating when not made of smoke, over two blocks tall (that's more than six feet for you Imperial-system-users) with muscular arms and, of course, the glowing white eyes. The teal shirt, the blue jeans-pants-whatever, the grey boots…

The five blazes on either side of him, three pigmen accompanying each group and two ghasts floating behind him. Oh, no. Mélodieux appeared on my left, Triston on my right.

Herobrine grinned, still holding the fire in place.

"Anyone up for a boss battle?"


	37. Day Twenty Six: Taking Care of It

**A/N: This took a while. I am publishing this at eleven thirty at night. My holidays are nearly over. I had the most enchanting day ever. I am tired. Have a chapter.**

"Anyone up for a boss battle?"

It took a moment for the words to sink in.

Oh, crap.

I'm fighting a boss battle.

I have _never _been good at boss battles.

_Ever._

I sagged and grinned despairingly at Herobrine. "A boss battle?" I squeaked.

"A boss battle," he replied, smirking. "I am pretty boss, after all."

Mélodieux scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Triston burst out laughing. I caught a few sniggers from the mobs at Herobrine's side, too.

"Um… well, actually, we don't _have _to fight," I reasoned, gripping my sword tightly again. "I mean, I just want the villagers back, really, so if you just gave them to me, I'd go." He stared at me dubiously, one eyebrow raised.

"Come _on, _Flu," he said, flicking his fingers to beckon the fire onto his arms. It wrapped around his forearms and hands like fluffy orange gloves as he kind of… glided over to me. His feet barely seemed to touch the ground, fire trailing from his forearms until he drew to a halt in front of me. "Surely you know by now? I have a grudge against you," he explained, holding out his hands and letting the fire race up his arms to take the shape of a sword in his hands. He took its flaming hilt in one hand and weighed it up as it solidified into diamond that glowed ethereally.

I realised he was in Creative Mode.

"And I hold grudges," finished Herobrine, switching his grip and smashing the pommel of the sword into the side of my head.

I was sent sprawling onto the netherbrick, managed to do a form of cartwheel on my helmet and ended up flat on my back in front of a pigman. It drew its sword and prepared to run me through, but Mélodieux appeared out of nowhere and socked it in the face, giving me enough time to stagger upright and take a fireball to the helmet. Said helmet chose that moment to disintegrate. Dampnas.

I drew my sword and leapt backwards as another pigman attempted to slice my head off. Parrying another blow from it, I struck and it dodged expertly, signalling to something over my shoulder that spat yet another fireball into the small of my back. "This is hardly _fair!" _I yelled, staggering forwards and slicing a new gash into the pigman by sheer chance.

"You think I play fair?" Herobrine queried innocently, grabbing me by my hair and hoisting me into the air. I screamed and thrashed in his grip until Triston gave him a karate-style kick and he dropped me onto a small crowd of pigmen who managed to warp my chestplate until it broke off. Beginning to ooze purplish blood from various long cuts around my torso, face and arms, I thrust my sword around vaguely and elbowed and sliced my way out of the throng. Back in a clear netherbrick space, I pushed some hair out of my eyes and squealed as it clumped together with a reeking mixture of my blood and zombie pigman juices. "Ew! Ew! Ew!" I screamed, flailing about and waving my sword in the air. I managed to put a few eyes out just by that and suddenly there were about four less pigmen and three fewer blazes around, Herobrine ordering the wounded to back off. Well, at least he was considerate of _someone, _I mused.

I heard the sound of two blazes rearing up behind me and darted forward, making a hairpin turn left just as six fireballs shot past where I had been seconds ago. Mélodieux and Triston were picking at a group of pigmen a few blocks away, too insubstantial now for their punches and kicks to do any real damage. Another two blazes (or maybe the same two) dashed in front of me, grating eagerly, and I danced from side to side as a few flaming projectiles hurtled towards me. Yelping as I dodged the last one, I sprang forward and fought the blazes melee style, my sword combated by their spiralling rods. Strike and parry and strike and parry and strike and parry and _thrust; _just like that one of the fiery things was dust and I allowed myself a crow of victory, brandishing my sword high.

The other blaze chose that moment to wrap its smoky tail around my neck and yank me over backwards.

I let out a strangled gasp and the world warped and swirled in a blur of red and purple and pain until I collided with the netherbrick and something snapped. This was going freaking _well, _I was sure. "Alright, _alright," _I heard a familiarly deep voice say, pushing back the remaining blazes and hoisting me none too gently to my feet. I swayed there, sagging a little and yet stubbornly clinging to my sword, as Herobrine spoke again. "This is the bit where you lot back off and I duel her alone. Y'know, the classic villain-fights-hero thing. Except in this case it's villain-fights-Herobrine," he added with a grin.

"I'm _hardly _the villain," I complained, attempting to straighten up. Everything was still blurry. My hair felt wet. It was probably blood. _Ew. _

"Oh, sure," Herobrine retorted, "like you haven't been an absolute pain ever since you spawned."

"_I've _been a pain?" I echoed, incredulous. "You're the one who pushed me into lava and kidnapped my villager! I was just doing regular Minecrafter stuff, punching trees, punching sheep, punching rocks, punching air…"

"Minecrafters do a lot of punching," we noted at the same time and glared at each other.

"You've also been slaughtering countless mobs, wrecking my terrain, cutting swathes through my underground-"

"I'm as gentle as I can be!" I retorted, annoyed. "I replant saplings, trim the landscape instead of marring it completely-"

"You just don't _get _it," snarled Herobrine. I flinched before his blazing eyes. He was holding his sword ready now. "Just _die _already!"

With that he swiped for my head and I ducked with a squeak of fright, falling onto my butt and rolling out of the way about a second before he skewered my head. He managed to slice off a few strands of hair. On my belly a few blocks away I tried to push myself to my feet and he stepped on my head, pushing me back down. Writhing beneath his foot, I was struck by inspiration and attempted to call out "Look, Notch!" My voice was muffled by the netherrack, however, and it came out more as "Moof, Mawf!"

"_What?" _asked Herobrine, bemused. He took his foot off my head for a moment and crouched beside me.

"Made you look!" I crowed, pulling myself up and him down by the front of his shirt, grabbing the sword that clattered from his hand and dancing backwards a few steps. The pigmen, blazes and now multiple ghasts in audience hissed, booed and growled, threatening to step up and attack me again. Distracted, I didn't notice Herobrine until he had twisted my arm up behind my back and taken the sword again with a falsetto "Thank you!" He then threw me over his shoulder and whipped around again to stalk towards me. I scrambled to my feet and looked about frantically for a weapon, snatching a gold sword off a nearby pigman who oinked in protest before parrying Herobrine's slash and ducking out of reach. "En garde!" I exclaimed, adopting an amateurish fencing position. Herobrine rolled his eyes and humoured me, adopting a fencing position too. "En garde. You're going to die."

"**Hey Mélodieux, he sounds like you!"**

_Isn't he just _dreamy? There was barely a sneer in her voice. That was heavily disconcerting.

Abruptly Herobrine leapt at me and I blocked his blow in the nick of time, retaliating and having the tip of my sword sliced clean off. We exchanged a flurry of strikes that I could barely see and left us both with numerous cuts, though his healed instantaneously. Lucky sod.

_Correction: Lucky _dreamy _sod._

"Oh, don't you start," I muttered, attempting to take Herobrine by surprise as he stared at me blankly. I thrust for his neck and could have sworn I hit stone because the sword's golden hilt shattered in my hand and suddenly Herobrine was floating a few blocks in the air, holding me by one foot.

"Seriously?" he asked, dubious.

_Seriously._

"**Seriously!"**

"Shut up," I moaned, blood rushing to my head. I was _so _dead.

"You just don't _die, _do you?" Herobrine said, exasperated.

"I like not dying," I replied, words strained. "It's a favourite pastime of mine."

"_We could take care of that."_

Herobrine whipped around – swinging me wildly in the process – and I was granted a notably upside-down view of a trio of tall, thin, black things and brightened up at the prospect of endermen.

Then I noticed their empty eye sockets.

And bones.

And stone swords.

Wither skeletons.

Oh come o-

"And what do _you _things want?" Herobrine growled.

"_I will tell you what I want, what I really, really want," _sang one of the skeletons, bouncing from side to side until the undead beside it tossed its sword to its other hand and whacked it in the head.

"_You appear to be having trouble with that Minecrafter," _that skeleton noted, its voice flowing smoothly. I was surprised I could hear it. _"We would _love _to deal with it."_

"Oh, yes, Minecrafters, horrible things," I agreed, jerking my thumb towards Herobrine in the hope that they'd think he was the Minecrafter. "Really ought to be dealt with and all that."

"_Do you see? Even _it _agrees," _the third Wither skeleton pointed out.

_Well. You're an idiot._

"**What was your first clue?"**

"Shut up, you two," I hissed. The skeleton that had spoken first – I'll call it Spice for convenience and because of the song it sang – looked at me strangely.

"So you think _you _could kill her?" asked Herobrine disbelievingly.

"_We _are _Wither skeletons," _the second one – I'll call it Strike – said. _"We can kill a lot of things."_

"A lot of things can kill me," I piped up, feeling lightheaded. Blood rushing to the head was an odd feeling. "You're just a failure, Herobrine."

_Oh, _way _to get on his good side._

"Don't call me a failure, _Mellifluousness," _he retorted, swinging me dizzyingly from side to side and using my name as though it was synonymous with the word. It probably was. That's not the point, though.

_That's entirely the point._

Shut up.

The final skeleton, which I'll name Point, stepped forward. _"Of course you are not a failure, Herobrine," _it said soothingly. Sucking up to him. Nice. _"Minecrafters are stubborn creatures. Leave it to us. We will deal with it." _

Well, this was a dilemma.

Herobrine or Wither skeletons.

Wither skeletons or Herobrine.

Herobrine.

Wither skeletons.

_Doom or doom? Would you like a side of agonising death with that? There's a special on Withering right now. _

Oh, sod off, you.

"Well…" Herobrine sounded like he was considering the undead's offer.

Wither skeletons.

Herobrine.

I _really _couldn't decide which was worse.

"Yeah, go ahead," said Herobrine, chucking me at the Wither skeletons. Spice managed to catch me, grinning skeletally at me until I pushed off him and rubbed the sting of his touch off my arms.

"I don't suppose we could-"

"_Nope," _says Strike, tossing its stone sword into the air, catching it again and running me through.

_Well, they certainly get down to business quickly._

I stared blankly at the sword in my chest.

I attempted to speak.

Weird choking noises escaped my throat and a thin trail of oddly-coloured blood dribbled from the corner of my mouth.

"**Ewwwww, that's gross."**

_Well, this _is _Mellifluousness we're talking about…_

With a sickening _shick _Strike withdrew its sword and I collapsed before it.

"**Well, you're dead."**

"No freaking kidding," I replied distantly, staring into the Void. Armourless. Weaponless. Diamond-pick-less.

"**Um… Respawning…"**

With that I was dropped face-first onto the long grass of the plains.

Rain pelted down around me.

Thunder laughed at my pain.

"OH COME ON."


	38. Day Twenty Seven: As Usual

**A/N: Aha. Ahaha. This isn't late. This totally isn't late. I don't know what you're talking about. Ahahaha.**

**Sorry about the delay, guys… I'd say I have an excuse, but that would be a lie. *sheepish grin* I'm beginning to have trouble writing this, which is worrying. NO FLU, YOU MUST CONTINUE THIS RARGH**

**Um. I had something else to say a moment ago. It's gone now. Rargh. Stuff proofreading. Have a chapter. Ohyes, plot or no plot? ****_That _****is the question. You'll understand shortly. Be sure to answer.**

I trudged across the plains with my head down and fists clenched, partly because of the driving bloody rain and partly because I was annoyed at everything. Mud squelched disgustingly up between my bare toes and my violet fringe had plastered itself stubbornly over my eyes as one of the smaller houses came into view and the bowed golden heads of drenched wheat accompanied it; finally sharp fragments of gravel shifted beneath my clawed feet and I stomped down the street, climbing the steps to my house, wrenching open the door and slamming it shut behind me. It made a very satisfying _bang. _Scowling, I stomped over to my bed and fell upon it huffily, arms crossed.

_You look like a petulant child._

"I _am _a petulant child," I muttered, drifting off to sleep.

Hours later I woke to the cheery sound of birdsong and that pretty little tune I believe is from Skyrim or something. It rather ruined the charm when I found out it was Triston imitating the sounds. I waved him away and he dissipated, grumbling about just trying to cheer me up as I sat up in bed and-

_Crack-_

Fell back down again with a yelp of surprise. I opened my eyes again and stared upwards to see a fence post hanging from the ceiling, a piece of paper attached to it by a string. Bewildered, I reached up and tugged at the string to snap it, unrolling the piece of paper.

**Because I'm nice.**

**-H**

Yes, his handwriting was _just _that thick. Still utterly dumbfounded, I slid out from under the fence post, broke it (though it didn't drop anything) and headed outside.

Well, I opened the door, anyway.

Who was to be standing there but our favourite white-robed testificate, emerald eyes gazing quite happily at me?

"GAH!" I yelled, springing backwards and falling over the bed. Leaping into people's embraces is for those who aren't terrified by the sight of them. He stared at me blankly as I rolled over and got to my feet, holding my head. "Ow… don't _scare _me like that, Gregory!" The testificate looked heartbroken. He was surprisingly good at adopting a puppy-dog expression.

That was when I realised.

"Wait, you're _here!"_

_You only just_ _noticed?"_

"Does that mean you're all back?" I exclaimed, overjoyed. His reply was to turn away and head down the steps. I followed him, not bothering to grab any of my items, and he led me to the well where Reverend Gaston and two farmers waited. They bounced up and down at the sight of me, one of the farmers running around in a hyperactive circle before tripping over the well and falling flat on his face. Grinning, I raced over to greet them, not quite sure whether I wanted to hug them or not and settling for patting them on the back instead.

I attempted to strike up a conversation, but that proved rather difficult since their only replies were blank stares. Eventually I gave up and, farewelled by the testificates' excited jumping, strolled quite contentedly back towards my house.

_Well, what's the plan now? A desperate venture into the depths of the Nether to exact your revenge and obtain blaze rods? A quick jaunt into the bowels of the earth to prepare for a great journey? _

"Nothing of the sort!" I proclaimed, wrenching open the door and heading inside. I hooked it quite elegantly with a clawed foot and tugged it closed again. I quite inelegantly fell flat on my face when it wouldn't budge. As Mélodieux commented about how utterly _skilful _that movement had been I moaned and got back on my feet, yanking the door shut forcefully. It made a hideous sound as it grated on the wood beneath it. Thanks for your cooperation, door. I really appreciate it. No, really. As thanks I will allow you to _go die in the Nether._

_Now that you've finished threatening inanimate objects, what _is _your plan?_

"Elementary, my dear pestilence!" I said for the second time, adopting an English accent and miming holding a pipe in a Sherlock-esque manner. "I'm going to stuff logic and procrastinate. Build up the village, create weird crap, install mods, I'm going to do everything I can to avoid going back to the Nether and affiliating with Herobrine. Sound good to you? It sounds good to me." I folded my arms across my chest and smiled triumphantly.

_It sounds like the idea of a coward and idiot, so it _must _have come from you. There goes any semblance of a plot this story had._

**"ACHIEVEMENT GET! Uh… wait, can't say 'you just got burned' again… 'Boss Retort'!"**

_Oh, lovely. How creative of you, Triston. That really shows your imaginative capabilities._

**"It does?" **Triston sounded overjoyed. **"Why, thank you!"**

"That was sarcasm, Triston," I informed him, hefting open the chest – _everything _was rusty and uncooperative – and rummaging around inside.

**"Oh…"**

I sniggered at how crushed he sounded. Wait, that was horribly sadistic. "You're very imaginative, Triston," I reassured him, voice muffled by the chest.

**"Awww, thanks!"**

_Liar._

Shushing her, I extracted from the dusty innards of the wooden container four dulled golden ingots and a cloud of dust and cobweb that made me double over in hacks and coughs. With the utmost grace and majesty, mind.

_Like a tortoise has grace and majesty._

_Exactly _like a tortoise has grace and- oh. Oh. You little-

**"Language!"**

"I was hardly considering swearing," I defended myself, slamming the ingots down on the crafting table and melding them into boots in a very unspectacular manner.

_Wait, you made _golden boots?_ Oh, you distracted me! You sneaky sod!_

"Take that!" I crowed, yanking the (slightly too small) things onto my feet with much hopping around, flailing, yelling and falling over. Finally I had them on and danced a short jig to make sure they fitted. When I fell over yet _again _I decided they probably didn't.

Mélodieux clapped slowly.

With that I quickly crafted a batch of iron tools, admiring my workmanship (though Mélodieux insisted they were crap) and strode back out into the fresh air, trying to ignore the tightness of my boots. I looked around contentedly, wondering what to do first.

_Go fight Herobrine, coward._

I laughed. "_No way in the Nether. _I know, I'll build more houses so we can get some more villagers and maybe a big creepy iron golem!" I chirped, turning on my heel and setting off for the forest. Awkward footsteps noisy on the grass, I passed a small herd of pigs out on the plain and soon the trees were in sight. My gaze flicked from plant to plant as I approached them, determining with my absolutely expert eye (because you all know that I'm an expert botanist _Yes, expert in not knowing anything about botany) _which tree would be best to cut down. Well, that one looked good, I decided, making a beeline for it, and-

Wait.

What.

Leaning against its trunk was an odd form, garbed in brown and bald-headed. Its hands were hidden in its sleeves, arms folded across its chest that rose and fell gently as it breathed in and out…

"A testificate?" I exclaimed, bewildered.

_No, it's a pig._

The testificate leapt to attention at my cry, looking around frantically for a moment before noticing me, jumping in surprise, whipping around again and running straight into the tree. It staggered backwards a few steps before shaking its head to clear it, turning again and noticing me. At this it panicked, running around in a frenetic circle.

"Loony!" I concluded joyously, dashing over to him and tackling him in a hug. He made an odd squealing noise and squirmed in my grip, managing to throw me off and hop backwards a few steps, glowering at me with those bright emerald eyes.

"Oh, so this is how you want to do this?" I queried, taking out my iron pick and letting it grow to full size in my hand. Loony set back his shoulders, stood with his feet apart and stared at me defiantly.

"BRING IT ON!" I yelled a battle cry, raised my pickaxe and charged.

He sidestepped.

I smashed into the tree.

Staggering backwards with a groan, I dropped the pick to hold onto my nose. Loony made another squealing noise and began to run around in a circle again behind me and I stood bent double and feeling sorry for myself.

I cried out when a surprisingly heavy form tackled me to the ground and knocked the air out of me. Loony rolled off me again and kept rolling; when I pushed myself up on my hands I stared blankly at the insane testificate rolling back and forth beside me. After a moment I'd regained my breath (don't question the blessing of Minecrafter healing) and strode over to Loony, seizing him by one leg and beginning to drag him towards Ir Qas. Anyone who has ever dragged their friends by the feet before will know how horrendously heavy a person can be, and it felt like Loony had been eating all the pumpkin pies recently to boot. Then there was all the fun of hauling him up metre-high surfaces and the added bonus of him squirming, squeaking and thrashing like a captured animal.

Thanks, Loony, for making that trip _so much fun._

Finally we were back at the village and the Farmers Bob (because, if you will recall, every farmer is named Bob), Reverend Gaston and Gregory were amassed at the edge of the houses, probably intrigued by the hideous racket Loony was making.

Okay, that was enough. "Happy now, you sod?" I snapped at him, dumping him on the ground a few blocks from the houses. He stopped squealing immediately, managed to spin himself around for a few seconds and got to his feet, smiling at the other testificates and squeaking happily. Oh my goodness. That was _the most _adorable noise I had ever heard. Suddenly overcome by a girlish urge to hug cute things, I embraced him and informed him that he was utterly adorable.

He bit me.

Yelling in surprise more than pain, I pushed him away – straight into one of the farmers, who fell over – and leapt backwards. "What was _that _for?" Gregory glared at Loony and trotted over to him, kicking him in the shin when he got to his feet. Loony squeaked and ran around in a panicked circle, Gregory soon joining him to chase him off into the village.

Ah, Gregory. So protective.

_Actually, he was using it as an excuse to get away from you._

Oh, shut up. Suddenly the sun was setting and I decided it would be a good idea to head home. What an utterly unproductive day.

_As usual._


	39. End of an Era

**A/N: Okay, readers. Hello there.**

**Yet again I've taken forever to update and I am disappointed in myself because I'm pretty much fed up with writing this. I just don't really want to anymore and my sincerest, greatest apologies, but I'm not writing something I don't find fun to write.**

**So yeah, excuse me while I dump the crumpled remains of this story at your feet and trudge off in shame. :D**

**But I hate to do that because I know you guys really enjoy this story and the lulz it provides; I feel it's kind of my duty to you to keep doing **_**something **_**like this.**

**Thus I propose a sequel.**

**This sequel will be heavily modded, still based off gameplay experience and with more of a plot. I know, I know, TWiWWF with a **_**plot? **_**WHAT IS THIS ENCHANTING? I'll need to actually think of said plot, but it'll most likely have to do with whatever mods we end up choosing.**

**Yes, **_**we**_**. :D I'm writing this for you lot now as much as for myself and you're going to be a part of it. There's a link to my DeviantART page on my profile (which you can get to by clicking on my name at the top of the page, for those of you who don't know) and on that DeviantART page is a 'journal' entry listing a few mods I could use; I have been long decided as of about five minutes ago that I will be using Forge, so scratch any on that list that are for Modloader. :D NOBODY LIKES YOU, MODLOADER. NOBODY LIKES YOU**

**Of course, if you have any more mods to suggest that's always good and you don't necessarily have to comment on the journal itself; feel free to leave a review here with your opinions and suggestions and perhaps potential plot points (though those might be better to suggest via PM to prevent spoilers for your fellow readers :P) because I have no idea what I'm doing.**

_As usual._

**Shaddup, Mélodieux.**

**Also, I'll be starting the Aether story when the full version of the mod comes out in a couple of months or so. :D I've been stalking their Facebook page, never fear, and the Alpha release of it will probably be out by the time most of you are reading this. For **_**once **_**I might actually be glued to Minecraft for a bit. :D**

**Yes, this is a long Author's Note and I must apologise again for giving up.**

**But yeah.**

**Decisions, decisions.**

**Have what I had written so far, with a little bit added to make it more of a satisfying ending. :D**

With a yawn I stretched in my bed and hit my head on the wall behind me. Ow. Muttering under my breath and holding my head, I swung my legs over the side of my bed and-

Looked up at Reverend Gaston.

Um.

_Oh look, you have a visitor._

"Um," I said aloud, staring back at him. "Uh… hi?" He stared. "Good... morning…" He stared. I scrambled to my feet, tripped over my boots, stumbled around a bit and finally stood up. Turning to face the testificate, I opened my mouth to say something else, closed it again, nodded and pushed past him to head out the door.

Right, this time I was _actually _going to get logs instead of-

_Instead of procrastinating like an idiot again?_

Well, this is all about procrastination, so I wouldn't say that. Whistling (or at least attempting to), I strode off to the forest again, axe in hand.

Soon I had a great plethora of logs and saplings bobbed back and forth happily where trees had one stood. As I headed for the next tree, an odd dirt construction caught my eye and, surprised, I halted. It was shaped a bit like a… headless person. Well. What a pleasant image. Upon closer examination, I discovered that it marked a cave; oh yes, hadn't I placed this a while ago? It marked…

_Your grave. Like everywhere else in the world._

A _cave, _you git. It marked a _cave _of some kind. Intrigued, I readied my sword and peered inside.

"Hey there," rumbled a zombie, leaning nonchalantly on a block of stone and grinning up at me. "You're looking mighty tasty this morning."

I stared.

Very slowly, I inched away.

I then turned on my heel and scurried off to find another good tree…

A short while later I had fifty-six logs and a total of three apples, one of which was reduced to a core that lay discarded on the ground. Fertiliser. Not litter, _fertiliser. _There's a _difference. _It's _organic._

_It's still litter._

Shut up.

I wandered around a little while longer and soon another cave caught my eye; peering down into it, I saw a great few mounds of gravel and darkness. Lots of darkness. Because it was a cave. And caves… are full… of darkness.

_Finished stating the obvious?_

Not quite. It was then that I noticed a zombie walk onto a pile of gravel and begin to break-dance.

Ah, Minecraft mobs…

"Squeak!"

"A bat!" I cried joyously, scanning the cave until I spotted the little winged rodent fluttering around. It was ridiculously adorable.

"**ACHIEVEMENT GET! 'Batty'!"**

_Oh my goodness, Triston, that's _horrible.

"**I know, right?"**

"Really? I thought it was rather amusing."

I yelped and sprang forwards in shock at the sudden deep voice, tumbling head over heels and doing an _incredibly _graceful faceplant further down in the gravel. Footsteps gently sounded _ssht, ssht, ssht_ on the sharp grains and strong fingers tightened around my neck and lifted me up.

"Hello there," said Herobrine, smiling as he brought me up to his face.

Wait.

It was a tan, brown-haired face.

Not smoky and white.

"You're _solid?" _I choked out, eyes wide in surprise.

"Need more proof?" he queried mildly and threw me up in the air, catching me by the ankle and slamming me into the roof. I hung in his grip, dazed.

"Ow. Yeah. You might be solid," I wheezed.

_Hey, only _I'm _allowed to do that, _said Mélodieux indignantly, materialising with crossed arms and tail flicking. Herobrine promptly received a roundhouse kick to the head and dropped me with a yell, causing me to faceplant yet again; as I scrambled to my feet, sword in hand, I saw a smoky fuchsia form locked in battle with the huge white-eyed man.

Like a boss she locked her legs around his neck, flipped him over and promptly vanished into pink swirls in the air.

"Mélodieux?" I cried, shocked. Again. I made a good damsel-in-distress.

"I think this warrants a cackle. No-one can save you now, ahahahahahahahaha!" Herobrine cackled before dissolving into coughing. "Urgh," he grunted, bent double, "that wasn't a good idea."

"If you get to cackle," I reasoned, "I get to be a hero. I will avenge yooooou!" I declared, leaping into the air with incredible melodrama, sword upraised.

"Nope." My face met Herobrine's outstretched palm and I was thrown to the ground.

"Ow."

"You think?" he queried, mildly again. He then planted his foot on my head.

Oh, dear.

"**I am your secret weapon!" **boomed Triston, appearing out of thin air and tackling Herobrine sideways.

Then there was a glowing diamond blade sticking out of his back and he vanished wide-eyed into blue smoke as Herobrine got to his feet again.

"Right, now that's done," he said as I scrambled upwards also, "it's your turn."

Of course, I replied with the utmost valiance and bravado.

"Meep," I said quietly, holding my sword across my chest in a defensive position.

With a few strikes of his sword, I was standing weaponless and my blade was lying in two pieces across the cave.

"Really an expert swordsman, aren't you?" quipped Herobrine.

He ran me through.

%-%

I stared blankly at the Void. Triston floated on my left, fiddling with his shirt, Mélodieux on my right with her arms crossed and face impassive.

_That went well._

"**I wanted to be a secret weapon." **He was pouting.

_Maybe if you hadn't yelled it out like an idiot it would have been more of a secret._

"**Well, **_**you **_**can't roundhouse kick. So **_**nyeh," **_added he, poking his tongue out at her.

"Uh… can we… respawn, Triston?"

"**Nope."**

"Darn."

"**Yup."**

_Seems this is over, then. I envy that lucky little world. It never has to deal with _you _again._

"Gee, thanks." Wistfully I examined a passing dust particle. It was kind of sad that this had to end.

_Well, since you're too lazy to continue it, we might as well start over._

"Yep… starting over. Remember to check the DeviantART page and review with suggestions, readers," I said half-heartedly, waving at the distance. Fourth wall? What fourth wall? I see no fourth wall.

"**We'd better end this on some kind of clever note."**

_Clever? We can be _clever? _For that matter, _Flu _can be clever?_

Triston laughed. **"Didn't think so."**

"Thanks guys. Wow. Thanks.

"So… this has been _The World in Which We Fail."_

"**Written by Mellifluousness."**

_Unfortunately.___

%-%


End file.
